School tax reprieve helps Cobb
A letter writer recently chastised a Buckhead legislator for proposing the idea that Fulton County consider the same benefit that seniors in Cobb County enjoy with regard to not paying the school tax. One should look at this benefit from another perspective. How many folks, like myself, recently chose to move to Cobb County instead of Fulton or another county precisely because of the school tax break? Seniors who buy a home in Cobb not only help to shore up property values by buying a home there, but also support local merchants and restaurants, pay sales, gas and other taxes to Cobb County. I for one would have bought in Fulton County to be closer to family when we recently moved here from Florida, but my realtor, who lives in Fulton County, pointed out this precise benefit of buying a home in Cobb County.
NATHAN TINANOFF, MARIETTA
Heart transplant recipient’s criminal record
In Gracie Bonds Staples’ Saturday column (“It’s never a waste of time to save a life,” Living) Ms. Staples ignores the fact that Anthony Stokes was arrested 11 times before his heart transplant. She apparently believes the lies told by Stoke’s mother, Melencia Hamilton, that he was branded a mere “troublemaker at school” when the facts are that he had a long arrest record by the age of 15. I agree that he should not have been denied the transplant, but I can not agree with Ms. Staples’ refusal to acknowledge the truth.
MARTIN GELHAAR, LAWRENCEVILLE
Grow up on funding transportation
Predictably, our cowardly and irresponsible Legislature has failed to pass the kind of transportation funding bill our state sorely needs. Instead of raising and allocating several billion dollars per year to upgrade roads, mass transit and other infrastructure as needed for Georgia’s economic growth and quality of life, the General Assembly has come up with a paltry $900 million that will merely fill the worst potholes. Our lawmakers are intimidated out of doing their jobs by a majority “conservative” electorate that makes a religion out of not raising taxes. We should be funding transportation and other needs the only fair way – through progressive, graduated increases in income tax. But voters foolishly vetoed that option last year though a Constitutional amendment. Surveys show most Georgians want the services government provides but don’t want to pay for them. Wanting something for nothing is not conservative. It is just childish.
CHRIS MOSER, LITHONIA
