Letters to the editor

Supports property tax cap

Maybe people just don't understand the Sharron Angle Property Tax Cap. It would be so much more fair to those already in their homes for a long time and those buying new homes.

I am originally from California (but have been here for years) and years ago I remember my folk's taxes doubling! Were it not for the California Prop 13 Jarvis Gann initiative they would have lost their home as many folks would have! That was a landmark ballot initiative and millions voted for it " it was a landslide because these people didn't want to lose their homes that they had worked so hard for!

Big government, some developers and Realtors do not want this plan to go through because they think they will lose money but the truth is when a house sells it will go to a full market value tax rate and it will be fixed like the house payment " predictable, stable, and easy to budget. The teachers union doesn't want it because they would like to continue to tap the home owner for schools! But enough is enough! Find another source of funding as retirees cannot afford to continue to subsidize every raise they get and having the most up-to-date computers and equipment in the classrooms too! As regards developers and Realtors (and I was a Realtor in So. California!) self-interest is a poor excuse for forcing people with no additional money coming in, like senior citizens on a fixed income, to sell their homes or lose them to taxes!

Sharron Angle's tax cap plan would roll back the value of your homes to 2003-2004 and set the tax rate at 1 percent rate. The taxes couldn't go up more than 2 percent of that tax rate per year until you sell your home. This is certainly fair! The current plan does continue to raise the valuation to whatever they deem it to be and the 3 percent abatement will continue to skyrocket your taxes! A true tax cap means nothing if we don't have a stable tax base value! Isn't it strange that home values went down and my own taxes just went up $200 this year? I am sure I am not alone and that a lot of others went up too. The assessor can simply raise the valuation of your property every year without considering the economy and the real estate market now. They raise the tax on the high valuation at 3 percent when in fact property values have tanked!

If a true property tax cap like Sharron Angle is proposing, goes through, people buying homes now will not have to worry about their own property taxes skyrocketing in the years to come when they are on a fixed income.

I see nothing wrong with people who have owned their homes for a long time " most of which are on fixed incomes now " and have paid for the services, paying less in taxes than new buyers who are part of the growth that strains those services.

Doreen Hoffman

Jacks Valley

AP analysis lacked objectivity

After the following attack on Obama, could you please tell AP that objectivity is what the Appeal from the times of Mark Twain has been about. Not this kind of yellow journalism: "The candidate of change went with the status quo. In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness and inexperience in office and on foreign policy ... He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate "- the ultimate insider " The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative ..."

PAUL G. CORRADO

Carson City