Letter: Debt load

To the editor:

$18 million public library expansion.

$19 million water treatment.

$25 million new recreation center.

$20 million-$40 million police department “upgrades.”

$64 million sewage treatment plant.

$92.5 million school “upgrades.”

Total: $258.5 million additional debt on the city level. This doesn’t include massive state and federal debts.

The government is not magic. It has no wealth except what it takes from people in taxes. Is it worth putting your children into debt?

Thomas Jefferson said, “I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in or comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

Isn’t it time we listened to the truth and stopped going for the instant gratification of nice things?