The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing.
~Jean Baptist Colbert

We believe - and we have not wavered from that belief - that we reached the limit on what we should be taxed.
We also believe that every person that is an adult citizen of this country should bear his or her fair burden of taxes to support local and federal government and schools.
The problem is that over half the adult potential taxpayers in this country pay no taxes after credits are given by federal and state governments, and as a result the remaining 49 percent are paying way more than their share.
Here in Rockdale County we are very likely to have our taxes raised to support our school system and our county government.
The school board and the county commissioners have discussed their tentative budgets and proposed budget amendments, and both contain mileage increases.
Before going to the people to ask them to shell out more tax money, we want to see that every possible step has been taken to trim the budget to only what is absolutely necessary. Surrounding counties and state agencies have seen the writing on the wall and have done quite a bit of belt tightening, whether that means furloughs or trimming positions.
We would like the elected commissioners and members of the school board to look at the budgets as if it were their own money. In order to survive you would have to live within your means because there would not be some magical tree to pull money from in order to live outside of those means.
We ask for the residents of Rockdale County nothing less than this consideration.