Taxes

In response to “Complaints Over Paying Taxes” by G. Schroedter (Letters, Nov. 7), perhaps Americans’ objections to high taxes are not a cultural more but a practical result of seeing our tax dollars dwindling away with government not providing needed services the taxpayers are expecting.

We pay taxes for law enforcement yet have to dig into our pockets to pay for private security guards and damages to property because of lax law enforcement and prosecutions. We pay taxes for education, yet have to pay for private schools or watch the deterioration of public education with overcrowded classrooms and be burdened by constant appeals for donations to PTAs and children selling overpriced candy, etc. for school supplies.

We pay enormous auto insurance premiums because of government’s laxity in enforcing mandatory auto insurance. Our taxes have paid for a multitrillion-dollar defense system without provisions for its maintenance. Perhaps our objection is not aimed at paying taxes but at “having been had” by government’s gross misappropriation of our tax dollars.

RITA FEITLER

San Diego