A taxing issue
Thank you for publishing Jack Norman's revealing article about taxes in Wisconsin ("Are Wisconsin Taxes Too High?" 4/6/07). It's unfortunate that it did not appear a week earlier, before Wisconsin elected WMC's pet judge Annette Ziegler to the state Supreme Court.
As a single, childless homeowner in Madison/ Shorewood Hills since 1998, I have never felt put-upon by taxes. Why? Because I have firsthand experience of living in low-tax states: a $900 registration fee on a 10-year-old car in Nebraska; state parks in Alabama with casinos, convention centers and Wal-Mart-size parking lots because they have to generate their own revenue; and the unreliable garbage pick-up and trashed public spaces of Missouri.
I fully support a community that uses my tax dollars for the betterment of neighborhoods, public transportation, public schools and public parks. Our corporate "neighbors" must be made (forced if necessary) to do the same.
Holly McEntee
Jack Norman quips that campaigns to reduce taxes are ideologically motivated. Yet he never mentions what this ideology is. It is the ideology of capitalism, which stands for achieving values by trade rather than coercion and upholds each individual's right to keep what he earns.
Capitalism rejects the view that society should tell people what to do. Instead it leaves people free to achieve their own rewards without fear of having these rewards taxed away. This is the unacknowledged justification for reducing taxes.
Jim Allard
Kid chess
The article about chess and kids (Kids & Parents, 4/6/07) was great! But there are two other libraries that also run chess clubs: Sequoya Library, 513 S. Midvale Blvd., on the first and third Friday of each month, 4-6 p.m., and Meadowridge Library, 5740 Raymond Rd., every Wednesday, 3:15-4:30 p.m.
Gregg Drexler librarian Sequoya Library
