Ten of our youth and four adults are in Dickenson County, Virginia with the Appalachia Service Project. Becca Knight who is a member at FPC and on staff at ASP visited with them earlier in the week and took some pics. We have them on the website already.
Here are our two teams.
From left to right: Ellie, Courtney, Eeva, Natalie, Scott, Dillon, and Taylor. And...
Samantha, Merrilee, Dylan, Rion, John, Shannon, and Dwain.
Doesn't seem quite fair, does it?
A view from an overlook in Wise County, Virginia.
Well, as the old saying goes, there are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
ReplyDeleteSo a person who made a billion dollars paid fifty-two million dollars in taxes and the person who made twenty thousand paid seventeen hundred and sixty dollars. Doesn't seem so bad when you look at it that way does it?
The problem is that both ways are skewed. The Billionaire, as the bible says, "paid out of their abundance" whilst the pauper paid out of their necessity. Although neither did it voluntarily.
OK, so what's the solution? The only two I've heard generally proposed is A) remove more and more people from the tax rolls and/or B) enact Socialism and take from the rich and give to the poor.
So, it's an Economics 101 exercise. Please review and discuss the problems with both of the above solutions.
How about we just give this great group of young people a pat on the back for the work they're doing?
ReplyDeleteSo a person who made a billion dollars paid fifty-two million dollars in taxes and the person who made twenty thousand paid seventeen hundred and sixty dollars. Doesn't seem so bad when you look at it that way does it?
ReplyDeleteYes, it does seem so bad.
Here is a helpful page about poverty in Appalachia.
Fundamentally, Central Appalachia's problems stem from the fact that in an eighty-county area, 72% of the surface acreage and 89% of the mineral rights are absentee-owned. Historically much of this land has been greatly underassessed and undertaxed. As a result of this undertaxation, local municipalities have had very little revenue to finance adequate educational systems, construct and maintain water and sewage treatment facilities, provide for county landfills, roads, and basic health care.
A 1982 land study discovered that in the eighty-county area, the average tax per acre was $.90, and almost 25% of the land was taxed at less than $.25 per acre. In this same area, 75% of the owners of mineral rights paid less than $.25 per acre.
In twelve counties surveyed in eastern Kentucky, the average tax for minerals was 1/5 of a cent. In West Virginia, the study revealed that absentee corporate landowners paid 16% of the total property tax for the state, yet they owned 50% of the land and 75% of the mineral rights.
With 72% of the surface land owned by people outside the region, local residents must compete with each other and with businesses and municipalities for the balance of the land.
@Snad
ReplyDeleteYes, that is what this post was about!
I can't resist:
ReplyDelete"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
–Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
@John
ReplyDeleteSame problem in poor cities up here. Chester PA doesn't collect enough property tax to pay for schools. They don't have enough books or teachers. The lack of teachers send the students to the auditorium to study for themselves with books they don't have.
Just next door the district that includes Swarthmore has a great system with plenty of books and great teachers.
Maybe property tax should be statewide and paid according to the number of students and not locally? Oops, that system is a mess in CA. Besides I think it makes me a socialist.
Man that last picture is gorgeous! And the second to the last picture breaks my heart.
ReplyDelete