NASSAU COUNTY CIVIC ASSOCIATION, INC.
"The government is us, we are the government, you and I." Teddy Roosevelt
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NASSAU COUNTY CIVIC ASSOCIATION, INC. "The government is us, we are the government, you and I." Teddy Roosevelt |
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April 28, 2007
Property Taxes On Long Island
How to ruin the place we call home
By Ernest C. Weber, Sr.
I was born on Long Island and I have lived here all of my sixty years. As I child I believed our island was the best place in the world. I further affirmed that when as a young man I left home for military service. Although the military sent me to many places, there was no place I wanted to be more than Long Island. I yearned to be in what I felt was the best place in the world.
Settling on Long Island and raising a family here was, to me, the fulfillment of the “American Dream.” Unfortunately, as years went by, things started to change. Suburban sprawl, congestion, pollution, traffic, an increase in crime, cost of living, high taxes and a decline in several other quality of life issues impacted Long Island. Nonetheless my family, my wife and I still felt this was probably a pretty good place to live. So, at a critical juncture in their lives, our three sons and their spouses decided to stay. They have struggled to establish themselves in jobs, buy homes and start families. Although my wife and I could certainly live cheaper and more comfortably someplace else, with our family here we decided we were locked in and that we would retire here.
If anything forces us to leave our home and our family it will be the insanely high property taxes. Many retirees can’t keep up. But no one really seems to care enough about that to do anything to correct it. People in other parts of our country pay just a fraction of what we pay. They literally cannot believe it when we tell them what we pay in property taxes. Once it sinks in they think we’re crazy to stay here.
New York City has all but lost its middle class. Will we be next? My parent’s generation and my generation built Long Island. We paid our bills, paid our taxes and did everything we were supposed to do. Now many may be forced to leave. The reason for this is that we have been and continue to be betrayed by many of our state and local politicians. Almost daily we read in Newsday about the corruption, mismanagement and greed that permeates the institutions and politicians that have the ability to tax us. Many of them take care of their friends, line their pockets and pander to special interest groups. Yet it continues. This waste can and must be stopped.
In order to stop this insanity the politicians must receive a mandate from the people. They must be required to reduce and hold the line on property taxes or leave office. Once that is accomplished property taxes should not be permitted to rise above the cost of living. Nothing short of this would solve the problem.
Ernest C. Weber, Sr. is a resident of Massapequa, NY