Just like students, seniors get help too
According to Bob Skarda, (Jan. 15, Fence Post) people on fixed incomes are victims of theft by those with children who use the public schools and force him to pay "disgracefully exorbitant" property taxes.
As a senior citizen myself who has paid his fair share of taxes while raising seven children and putting them through both private and public schools and universities, I feel qualified to respond to Mr. Skarda's comments with a simple question:
Who is now providing for your needs?
If you are on a fixed income as you imply, I assume you have reached that magic age of entitlements.
Our governor currently wants to provide you with free Metra, CTA and PACE accommodations. Our young working people will pay for that along with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, free prescription benefits, frozen tax assessments and all of this while attempting to raise a family of future taxpayers.
Some seniors will argue that they paid into Social Security all of their working lives and are simply getting back what is their fair share.
But we all know that's hogwash. Our lawmakers have been so careless with these entitlement programs that we as a society are facing bankruptcy if we don't cut back on the payouts or increase taxes.
This of course is difficult to do because of a small but very vocal subgroup of seniors who are constantly threatening to vote out of office less "generous" lawmakers while replacing them with the more crafty and less responsible officials who will spend away the future to appease these perennial malcontents.
The facts show that seniors are among the wealthiest segment of our society and much of what they received was because of a combination of their hard work, postponed gratification and sacrifices of prior generations.
This is the way it is supposed to work in a society that treasures the family institution and sees it as the basic building block of society.
We pay taxes as part of our responsibility for the common good.
Gerald Wester
Mount Prospect