Letter: Say no to vouchers

Since when is it okay to take my tax dollars, paid by me for the civic affairs of the state and community, and dole out those dollars to individuals so they can withdraw from our community and send their kids off to private schools?

If tax dollars were used this way for anything else, like paying for an individual to fund personal travel, we would call it corruption. Yet, with the school voucher legislation, Senate Bill 193, our state Legislature and governor are planning to pass a law that funds parents who decide that they want to withdraw from their communities and go their own way. This is really an outrage.

Not only does it allow individuals to take money meant for public funding and put it in their private little piggy bank, but it will ultimately put a greater burden on the rest of us to come up with more money to fund our school system. That means higher property and local taxes for the rest of us. Taxpayer money doesn’t belong to individuals. It belongs to all of us. We use it to fund our common needs in our state and local communities from road repair, fire and police departments, highway patrol to public schools. No individual should be able to just lay claim to it to do their own thing.

This bill is wrong, and we need to let our state Legislature know that taxes should be used only for the public good not personal private gain.

WAYNE FULLER

Concord