Everyone should read Phil Krinkie’s columns printed in the Albert Lea Tribune on Feb. 25, which is about tax rates, the services those taxes provide and who benefits by those services, and on March 5, which is about Mayo Clinic seeking state and local funding of nearly $600 million to make Rochester a global medical destination. (Interpretation of state and local funding is OUR tax dollars.)

I think they are very good columns, because they tell it the way it really is. We are all trying to survive in today’s economy, but we are being taxed to death by big government and big business that holds taxpayers hostage with the threat that if they don’t get a tax break, or the use of our tax dollars, they will take their businesses somewhere else.

Tell me the last time you were happy with the cost of your medical insurance premiums, or when you totally understood the last medical bill you received and it was a reasonable and affordable amount for the service provided. Understandably there are people out there who cannot or will not take responsibility for their lives, and to expect a health care business or taxpayers to provide for them is just another form of redistribution of wealth through the new health care system.

Taxes are a part of life, but they need to be fair to everyone. Health care is also a very important part of life, and it needs to be affordable to everyone. But to have taxes and health care costs that are out of control is more than most of us can sustain.

The people we elect to represent us and control our tax dollar spending need to do a better job and understand how their decisions affect all of us.

 

Gary Hagen
Albert Lea