Now is not the time to be raising taxes. Unemployment is more than 9 percent in Dawson County, gas prices are taking more out of family budgets, etc.

It is time government agencies learned to conserve and do more with less.

How many taxpayers have insurance for life, teachers retirement plan?

How much goes into funding all the special benefits school workers have that the normal taxpayer does not.

The teacher’s union is one of the largest labor unions, if not the largest, in the nation. The teachers union does a good job telling everyone how hard teachers jobs are and I don’t disagree, but let them go work on an assembly line, at fast food business or Wal-mart. They will be glad to be back in the classroom.

None of these people have the benefits school workers have, but they are paying teacher’s salaries with their taxes.

Let’s bring school system employee’s benefits in line with the private sector and see how much money we will save.

When a manufacturing plant loses orders, the company is forced to layoff employees, or close its doors. When a business starts losing money, it is forced to cut back and live within its means or go out of business. There is no one there to bail them out of trouble.

Government agencies need to be downsized. We have been growing government for too many decades.

Once you give the government a tax increase you will never see the taxes go down, it will be there forever.

Another point to consider is that property owners are having to bare the burden of paying for education in this country.

In last Wednesday’s newspaper article the school board was worried about the loss of taxes on people over 70 years old. These taxpayers have not had kids in school for decades, why should they be paying to educate someone else’s kids.

Any tax increase is bad and taxpayers need to unite together to stop any more increases in this country for all levels of government, local, state and federal.

Bill Hulsey

Dawsonville