Anarchy, inspiration

This Newfoundland Community Pays No Property Tax, Governs Itself – NTD CANADA

 

Source: This Newfoundland Community Pays No Property Tax, Governs Itself – NTD CANADA

It’s also something that could be an example to other communities across the country, said Devin Drover, who is a Newfoundland resident as well as Atlantic director and general counsel for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“Some of these towns really think that if they have to have a municipal property tax, and they need to offer programs and services, other people in unincorporated municipalities should have the same responsibility,”  Drover told The Epoch Times in a phone interview.

He doesn’t consider that attitude fair.

“The [unincorporated] model empowers individuals to have more control over their finances, rather than paying a blank cheque to a mayor, or a mayor’s office, to decide how their money should be spent,” he said.

He said the Port de Grave community still manages to offer programming for the area.

“They pull off a great tree lighting every year. I always encourage people locally to attend.”

They also manage to do it without a “central government controlling those decisions,” he said. “The local residents can do it themselves without having to have expensive elections, having to divide the community, and having to basically have one person or a council making those decisions.”

Residents are also empowered to work together on projects they find interesting.

“When people have the ability to choose what to fund, it really shows what is most important to people.

Kindness, Life, Politics

I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People | HuffPost Latest News

I don’t know how to explain to someone why they should care about other people.

Personally, I’m happy to pay an extra 4.3 percent for my fast food burger if it means the person making it for me can afford to feed their own family. If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am.

I’m perfectly content to pay taxes that go toward public schools, even though I’m childless and intend to stay that way, because all children deserve a quality, free education. If this seems unfair or unreasonable to you, we are never going to see eye to eye.

If I have to pay a little more with each paycheck to ensure my fellow Americans can access health care? SIGN ME UP. Poverty should not be a death sentence in the richest country in the world. If you’re okay with thousands of people dying of treatable diseases just so the wealthiest among us can hoard still more wealth, there is a divide between our worldviews that can never be bridged.

I don’t know how to convince someone how to experience the basic human emotion of empathy. I cannot have one more conversation with someone who is content to see millions of people suffer needlessly in exchange for a tax cut that statistically they’ll never see (do you make anywhere close to the median American salary? Less? Congrats, this tax break is not for you).

I cannot have political debates with these people. Our disagreement is not merely political, but a fundamental divide on what it means to live in a society, how to be a good person, and why any of that matters.

There are all kinds of practical, self-serving reasons to raise the minimum wage (fairly compensated workers typically do better work), fund public schools (everyone’s safer when the general public can read and use critical thinking), and make sure every American can access health care (outbreaks of preventable diseases being generally undesirable).

But if making sure your fellow citizens can afford to eat, get an education, and go to the doctor isn’t enough of a reason to fund those things, I have nothing left to say to you.

Our disagreement is not merely political, but a fundamental divide on what it means to live in a society.

Source: I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People | HuffPost Latest News