A question for Michael Kitch now that Detroit has gone belly up financially - what's in your pocket? - Granite Grok

A question for Michael Kitch now that Detroit has gone belly up financially – what’s in your pocket?

Tax Money down the toiletI lost all respect, years ago, for Laconia Daily Sun Reporter Michael Kitch when we had a blowout argument that my town was made up of residents and elected officials that were cheapskates.  Certainly, he knew that I truly believed that when I was on the Budget Committee in my hamlet, I tried mightily to act in the vein that “this is not my money” – and spent a lot of time trying to convince others of the same.  If anything, I tried to be more frugal with other peoples’ money, their property tax monies, than I am with my own.  After all, it IS mine – I earned it and I should be able to spend it the way I want to.

Kitch believes otherwise – he could not understand (or stand) the idea that I (and my town, and other political entities) refused to raise the taxes on our residents simply to send that money to towns and cities that were broke.  Broke not because the single industry in town just up and left (and to which I would have some empathy) but because of years and decades of Progressive / Liberal / Democrat rule – the largest example now being Detroit.  As I have written here before, we had a screaming match over the fact that I refused to send money to the leaders of those towns, who have already proved that they are incapable of wisely spending their taxpayers monies.  WHY would I want to send them more and “enable” their bad habits?  His response was that ‘we are all in this together, that there were people still hurting in those cities, that the intent to help was paramount, and it was irrelevant that the political and appointed leaders would just waste that extra money.

Right…

I want to give MY hard earned money to people who will just set a match to it via paying off political favors, paying up the huge public unions, kept the hamster treadmill of corruption spinning at supersonic speeds, and to hold blameless these chuckleheads who should be held severely accountable .  Instead, in this time of “demanding Justice for Tryvon”, where is the outrage against the Detroit “Leadership” (many who have ending up in jail at a rate similar to that of former Massachusetts Speakers of the House)?

But Kitch believes that I, and folks that believe like me,  am the bad guy ’cause I refuse to put my hand in my pocket, pull out the green, and blithely send it away simply because I live in what he believes to be “a rich town”.  In short, he exhibits all of the attributes of a Progressive – only intent counts, results don’t matter, the Status Quo demands to be upheld and the only accountability is to demonize those that disagree with them.  So, Kitch, since there are still over 600,000 souls in that town, a majority in poverty (and probably doomed to stay in that status as the literacy rate (from their absolutely exemplary Government run schools) is at best 50%:

How much have you pulled out of your pocket and sent to Mayor Dave Bing, eh?  Putting your money where your mouth is?

After all, like Grokster Mike said on the show “Conservatives pull out their OWN wallets” andadd to that, the story that Jeff Chidester told about Dan Itse very quietly and personally helping someone “down and out” without asking others in his group to help. Simple acts of charity for which Conservatives receive no credit because we believe charity is a personal responsibility – and not one to force upon others.

Or, like many Progressives, you no longer believe that personal charity can help, even if only bit by bit,  and that the only solution is to “act collectively” and FORCE people to help (even if they are complete screwups like Detroit) by arbitrarily raising their taxes with no sense of accountability as to how it is to be used?

Whiffs of totalitarianism….

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