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Reject This Tax Increase

Just as all across this nation, Guilford households are dealing with record price inflation. We are paying much more for gasoline, heating oil, groceries, and everything else, and don’t even look at eggs! To make matters worse, continuing interest rate hikes are further impacting household budgets, with mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt all costing significantly more to service.

Unfortunately, to make matters worse, town budget time is here again. We all know from bitter experience that government always wants more taxes, and with revaluation, some of us are hit extra hard.

Considering the financial challenge presented by our current economy, households have no choice but to contain their spending. How nice it would be if our town and schools would do the same.

We are always told that budget increases are unavoidable, so our pockets must be picked ever deeper. How did it get that way? We will be told in this financial environment the town needs more money, but we taxpayers are experiencing the same constraints, and we cannot just demand more.

The “bottom line” is we taxpayers, if we are sensible, will tighten our spending to match our reduced budgets, while the town will just hit us ever harder with no concern for damage caused.

However, there is a way to reject the proposed tax increase.

The town budget meeting will be held at the community center on Tuesday, April 4m at 7:30 p.m. Residents will be able to vote to send the proposal back to the Board of Finance for reconsideration.

I urge all concerned residents to exercise their right to reject this tax increase.

David Roberts

Guilford