Dear Editor:
A recent article noted that the county is going to apply for federal aid to help pay for repairs to flood-damaged roads. I am not opposed to the country trying to get some of our tax money back from the feds but I am opposed to any federal program that offers such funding.
The federal government gets all its money from the pockets of individual taxpayers and/or consumers. Any taxes paid by businesses and corporations are just passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. A business must make a profit or it won't stay in business; increased costs, whether for raw materials or taxes, must be passed through to customers.
Chipotle restaurants provide an example of this mechanism. Due to the rise in beef prices they have raised prices about 0.5 percent in cities such as Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis and Orlando. San Francisco raised its minimum wage from $10.74/hr to $11.05/hr at the start of this year. Chipotle increased prices in San Francisco by 10.5 percent. A Chipotle spokesman said the San Francisco price increases were "done in part to offset higher labor costs."
Since the feds only get money from taxpayers and/or consumers why should those in any state think it reasonable to send money to D.C. so that the bureaucrats can use it as a carrot to control us? Our tax dollars are first used to support millions of federal employees and millions more of those who work as government consultants, whatever is left over is dribbled back to us.
It would make much more sense if we just kept our money in Missouri in the first place, with it we could pay to fix our own storm-damaged roads. Doing away with the entire federal DOT, and reducing all federal fuel taxes to zero, makes sense to me. Missouri could then increase their fuel taxes by the same amount. I am certain that those in Missouri, rather than the DC bunch, could make better decisions about where our fuel tax money should be spent. (States could opt to fund the salaries of a few people to assist them with coordinating plans with surrounding states.)