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Hernando Today

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 20, 2008

Unintended Consequences

To all who read Sherry and Walt Searle's letter about Hernando County.

My wife and I bought our home six years ago and have been experiencing the same tax picture as the Searles. What was not mentioned was that their taxes did not go up dramatically three, four and five years ago because of "Save Our Homes" valuation caps. Now that home values are declining, the taxable valuation is catching up to the market at 3 percent per year, as mandated by state law. To blame this on county government belies a hidden agenda.

The problem is "Save Our Homes" is a well-intentioned but economically flawed entitlement. We tried once to get rid of this, unsuccessfully. The county budget's doubling over the past few years is troubling and seems to be high on County Administrator David Hamilton's agenda.

As for the local economy, we retired folk are making a contribution. I never heard the home construction tradesmen complain when times were good. Naturally, they have saved for this downturn.

Monty Shultes

Spring Hill

Nation In Denial

In response to John Nash's column asking why newspapers provide more space to sports than news coverage, it's my opinion they do so because that's what their readers want to read. It seems to me that if that wasn't so, newspapers would not sell.

However, you bring out some excellent points that I believe reflect a more serious problem. As time goes on, I think we are becoming a society in denial. Our politicians do not seem to want to deal with real life, real-time problems because that's bad for their image and can hurt at election time. Society doesn't want to have all these problems, so we tend to grin and bear it, so to speak.

While these issues do make news, there does not seem to be much in the way of anyone recommending short- or long-term solutions. This too is denial.

Our society has become disconnected from our obligation to engage in how this country is run, how it is managed. We do not engage in an active manner, and we are paying a price for that.

We, the people, if you will, have lost sight of something very important. Politicians really do not have power; we do. We just loan it to them for two, four or six years. If they abuse it, we have ways of taking it away. There is the next election to vote them out. There is exposure for egregious acts, and there is impeachment for the truly egregious acts. But too many of us would rather stay home, and far too many will not read papers or listen to the news.

We are wrong, of course, in being more interested in sports than in reading about the downward spiral of a nation, but I suspect the interest in sports rather than hard news is a welcome distraction.

I could easily live without a sports section in my morning newspaper, but I could not live without the national, local and business news sections.

Leo Dougherty

Brooksville

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