Would it seem fair to you if your council member settled for a five-cent reduction of the tax rate when your assessment increases 25 percent?

Assume a home currently assessed at $275,000 is now assessed at $343,750.

The property tax was $2,915 but jumps to $3,471. So where do you find that extra $556 and what do you suppose the city is going to do with it … and what are you going to do without?

So, if your council member cared enough about your financial stress and dropped the rate by 10 cents, the city would still get an extra $384 out of your wallet or purse. Those seven people virtually determine if your home is affordable, and the quality of your lifestyle. Even the city manager should see what is happening to many citizens and recommend it. He has worked magic on a council that is supposed to be there for us … now let him represent us. There is a lot more to managing a city, for instance caring for it’s citizens, than finding a way to spend the windfall if there is no such cut.

There is hope that council members Linda Johnson and Curtis Milteer will stand up and demand it. Perhaps then Vice Mayor Leroy Bennett and Calvin Jones will see the light. If it does not happen, then it’s time to elect some people who claim to have the courage. The people in the middle, caught in the rising assessment crunch, people who want to remain in their homes, people on fixed incomes, and who isn’t, need council members who listen and are intelligent enough to realize what is going on. Seems to me that our council members and even the affected citizens sit on their hands, fiddling while Suffolk burns.

And you are getting short shrift from your governments above the local council? Our nation’s debt is an absurd amount because politicians care not what they spend. Every person in this country now owes somewhere more than $30,000. Our balance of trade is out of sight and rising; we owe billions more than we are owed. Many of the current Washington,

D.C. and Richmond politicians were around to make rules that protect corporations to the extent they allow them to discontinue pension plans they promised their employees. You can’t imagine the effects of that on retirees.

Even your Social Security is in peril, and Medicare; only increased taxation can save either. You, your children and their children will have to remedy these political failures, if they can be fixed at all. This will continue as long as politicians remain in office as a career rather than face up to the nations problems. You think I’m being negative, wake up and smell the weeds.

It will never matter which political party controls the nation; it has taken the best efforts of both parties to screws things up so badly. And it will continue as long as those who vote remain in a stupor. Sadly, even if we were to send sharp caring businessmen to our governments, too many of them find ways to siphon off what belongs to others.

It’s us folks; we are to blame. Take a look at us; we adore celebrities, sports figures, and collectively we send them enough money to live like the spoiled millionaires they are.

Both the poor and the rich experiment with and ruin their lives with drugs. Booze keeps the nation and imbibers afloat. Gambling is now a national sport and has a regular place on TV. There is no sense mentioning our sexual mores; it’s out of hand and too many of our youth have yielded to the irreparable dangers. Schools, colleges — too much to repair there; fewer young Americans are ready to handle the problems now facing this declining nation.

If you have to get old, it’s a good time to do it.

pocklington@suffolknewsherald.com