DEAR EDITOR:
Greg Miller’s letter to the editor asked a question of how much this school tax special election costs. After speaking with the Allen and Van Wert county boards of elections, the answer is around $15,000.
We could have shared this expense with other issues and levies in our area if we waited until November but now, we will be paying this amount ourselves. Could this extra money be used for something more worthy, like pay to participate?
Sincerely,
Charlie Luersman

DEAR EDITOR,
Here we go again. Another attempt by our local school board and administration to increase our taxes. This time by a special election. This is the only special election in this area that I am aware of.
This time, the taxes will cover all incomes, not just earned income, even though it has been lowered to .5 percent (for now). To you seniors and retirees, that means taxing social security, pensions, interest on savings and any investment incomes. This as the federal government is talking cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
Last election the school board was asking seniors and retirees to vote for the levy because it would not affect them. This time it will effect everyone. You would think that after the last tax levy was “soundly” defeated, the school board and administration would have gotten the message: “No new taxes.”
I don’t think they have any idea what to do; better to raise taxes than confront the issues. No one said it would be easy. Just do like every other business or industry and work within your budget. It takes much less effort to raise taxes than to face some difficult issues.
At present, the Delphos Public School system has five buildings to educate our students: Franklin Elementary, Jefferson Middle School, Landeck Elementary, Jefferson Senior High and the Superintendent’s office (across from the middle school building). Do we really need five school buildings? This seems to be an issue that none of the school board or administration want to “touch.” Consider the duplication of work, administration, teachers, maintenance, cafeteria staff, upkeep, utilities, etc. Which brings up another point. Do part time employees receive fringe benefits? What about some of the stipends that are paid to administrators and staff just to increase their salaries (e.g. Asbestos Monitor or Coordinator). I thought we had taken care of the asbestos problem and removal years ago (as part of one of several existing bond issues).
Granted there have been cuts in personnel but that’s another question. If the income tax passes will those persons be returned to the staff? If we are able to educate our students without them, did we need them in the first place? As I had stated in my last letter regarding this issue, most public institutions (including schools) are overstaffed and under-utilized. The list of questions could go on and on.
It is my opinion, and that of others that have approached me about this tax levy, that there is still much more to be done before taxes are increased.
One last thought. Why are we having a special election for this issue and what did it cost? I am figuring thousands of dollars (monies that according to the school administration financials we can’t afford to spend to begin with). Why not wait until the November general election. I think that they figured that the majority of voters would not take the time to vote on this one issue.
Be sure to vote on Tuesday, Aug. 2.
Greg Miller,
Delphos

By MURRAY COHEN
Publisher

No new taxes for billionaires!
That’s been what has amounted to the cry of some temporarily-insane congressmen.
Some months ago, I challenged congressmen who felt that way to go on a tour of Afghanistan and Iraq and preach that message to the troops. Let them explain why the immoral wartime Bush tax cuts should remain in place.
Considering that most of them didn’t subscribe to the Delphos Daily Herald, I had copies of the editorial sent to scores of congressmen. As far as I know, every one of them was too busy to explain in person to the armed forces why millionaires and billionaires should continue to enjoy the benefits of the Bush tax cuts.
Those tax cuts were the first ones in our history that occurred while the nation was at war.
I believe that holding to:
No new taxes for billionaires at a time when we have members of the armed forces sacrificing their limbs and lives in distant countries to protect our nation indicates a lack of conscience. Or a lack of sense of reality.
As one member of the House of Representatives said recently about the millionaire-billionaire tax cuts.
“They earned it. Let them keep it.” He is against any change in those immoral and stupifyingly insane Bush cuts.
It would bring trillions over the next decade if only those millionaire-billionaire folks would pay taxes at the same rate they did in the Clinton era. That was a time of relatively great prosperity for the nation, especially for those at the top of the economic heap.
We are engaged in a world-wide long-term battle with terrorism. It’s an expensive war and we will win it only if our armed forces continue to be as totally loyal and patriotic and dedicated as they are now and always have been. When several hundred families are earning and own what is heading toward nearly a third of what the rest of the country earns, we endanger the nation’s security,  especially  if  those  who  protect us see the looting of the nation under the congressmen who are sucking it up to the ultra-wealthiest, when  they see schools and police and hospitals and highways and bridges and veterans not getting the funds they need. And when they observe the United States in hock for more hundreds of billions to Asia — at least in part because of the refusal of congress to go for a fair tax code.
(Not all at the top feel “No new taxes for billionaires.” This editorial could have been written by many of the enlightened among them, including multi-billionaire Warren Buffet who has expressed thoughts along some of these lines.)
*****
Further, Dear Friends, this is an era where you have the wealthiest companies doing much more than taking advantage of every possible tax loophole. It’s beyond that. Way beyond that. They have thousands — yes, thousands — of highly-paid and highly influential attorneys on their payroll who are hard at work lobbying for the very tax laws and codes that are and will be the law of the land.
What emerges is a situation where the average Ohio worker may pay a higher tax rate than some billion dollar companies and hedge funds and their executives. This cannot continue.
*****
On the other side, every congressman who opposes a fair system of taxation can cite cases of fraud, waste and mismanagement in the federal government. All of Congress, along with the President, should do a lot more than they have previously to make the government more efficient and root out corruption.
*****
Lastly, except for humanitarian aid, we must know that we are economically doomed if we can’t stay out of other nation’s civil wars. We are decades and trillions of dollars behind on learning that lesson.

There I sat again on Friday glued to the computer watching our niece, Lotus, dance.
My husband has been in Maryland all week performing “Prop Uncle” duties and cheering her on.