Comments from our readers

We weren’t born yesterday

When are our elected officials, from both sides of the aisle, going to stop talking to us as if we were born yesterday?

During the past few years, we all saw the assessed values of our homes soar upward, thereby giving our taxation authorities a built-in escalation of our property taxes. They didn't have to raise our tax rates! They got their increases without having to do anything. Now they are taking credit for freezing taxes all these years.

I firmly believe that our elected officials expected this upward trend in property values would continue ad infinitum. But, alas, it ended. For the past year I have been wondering how these same officials would handle the drop in property assessments that is going to occur next year. They would have to raise the tax rate just to break even.

So now that the bottom fell out and assessed valuations will be considerably lower next year, the smart idea coming from their enlightened mouths is to freeze the assessments. Yes, freeze them at the highest point so the inevitable tax rise won’t appear so severe and they can look and sound good!

I ask one thing of those I elect: be honest and stop treating the people who pay their salaries as if they were idiots.

Susan Wilmer
Baldwin


Why energy taxes are good policy

Nobody likes taxes, but if one must choose a tax, a tax on energy is the most forward thinking. Why? Because the U.S. has 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves but uses 20 percent of the world’s oil, which means that we must import oil from foreign countries that hate us. An energy tax encourages people to take measures to improve energy efficiency and Long Island, with cold winters and hot summers, is prime for energy efficiency, especially with the number of old, inefficient homes. I’ve taken these measures myself, and now energy is not a significant cost in my household.

When my wife and I bought our Baldwin Harbor high-ranch in 1992, it used 1,500 gallons of oil per year. Immediately, we insulated the attic, which paid for the insulation in one season, and each time we renovated a room we upgraded the wall insulation. Oil consumption, with a 40-year-old boiler, dropped to 650 gallons per year.