Letters to the Editor for Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Writer: Valentine favors higher taxes
The Oct. 3 article, “House candidates spar over tax issues,” was very enlightening for me.

Del. Shannon Valentine has made transportation a major issue in her campaign without telling us how she planned to pay for the transportation improvements. Now we know; she plans to raise three existing taxes and create two new taxes. With the state economy trying to get back on its feet, now is not the time to be talking about increasing existing tax rates, let alone establishing new sales taxes on gasoline and auto repairs and putting tolls on roads.

Your article caused me to check Valentine’s voting record on taxes as our representative in the House of Delegates.

I was surprised to find in 2006, she had voted against repealing Virginia’s “Death tax.” In 2008, she voted for a tax increase that would have predominately benefited Northern Virginia, but would have cost all Virginians $3 billion over a six-year period. Her voting record demonstrates to me that she not only wants to increase our taxes for transportation improvements, but also wants to tax what we have worked hard throughout our lifetime to save for our children when we die.

Her voting record shows her to be in favor of higher taxes.
RHONNIE SMITH
Lynchburg

Greedy generation
Ken Burns’ new documentary film “The National Parks,” shown last week on PBS, is a vivid and stirring memorial to American civic vision and determination.

Will future artists be inspired to commemorate our great civic deeds? Small-minded politicians who play on popular fear and resentment of taxes have been sapping America’s strength and courage.

If tax avoidance comes to be this generation’s defining ambition, our grandchildren will create no memorials to our contributions to the common good. We will have passed down to them the burdens of excessive public debt, crumbling roads and bridges, rundown schools and libraries, deteriorating parks, and healthcare that is inexcusably expensive and inequitable.

When we want to cling anxiously to what we have accumulated, and when we are inclined to regard taxes as theft, we ought to stop and consider how we will appear in the eyes of posterity. Do we wish to be remembered as the “Greediest Generation”?
JOHN JUSTICE
Lynchburg