Short & Sweet

Here in Pittsburgh we are suffering the crippling effects of a massive snowstorm that hit the area nearly a week and one half ago. And that has been followed by a series of persistent smaller storms.

Predictably, the hue and cry from the poorer neighborhoods is that they always seem to get their streets plowed last. For once (shockingly) I agree with them!

There is a very good reason for this; since municipalities seem to run on a tax base, their priority is to plow the roads in the nicer neighborhoods and the business districts, because they are the major support for their tax base! (i.e., the tax payers!)

For years I have been forced to listen to the regurgitated drivel from the left largely based on a quote that was wrongly (or at least contextually wrongly) applied to Leona Helmsley "Only poor people pay taxes."

I am not going to waste this valuable space debating the wrongness of that sentiment. The fact is, that the poor in America pay very little, if any in taxes. When adjusted for the goods and services they receive under the auspices of 'charitible' government programs and tax-breaks (shudder), unlike the real tax payers, they actually end up getting more from the system than they contribute to the system. Often times much more!

Facts is stubborn things folks! So in spite of the rhetoric (which in liberal quarters seldom bears any resemblance to the truth) If you are poor, in terms of what you take from the system as compared to what you contribute to the system, you have a pretty good deal in America!

So the next time it snows, you can guage what you contribute by in what order and how long it takes the plows to clear your street!