To the Editor:

There have been a couple of interesting points made regarding the proposed school tax exemption for seniors. One point some have made, is that seniors (and others) without children in the school system should not pay taxes. The short response to this point (which is all the space a Letter to the Editor will allow) is that the entire community benefits from an educated populace.  Seniors particularly benefit when young people are educated, become productive members of society, get jobs and pay taxes (that disproportionately go to support programs that benefit the elderly, like Social Security and Medicare).  For those like George Batten, that would argue against the merit of a public school system, well frankly, that is an entirely different debate.  This discussion is not about whether we should continue to have a public school system, but rather how the current system should be funded.
Another argument some have made centers around the claim that people that rent homes/apartments don’t pay school taxes, since they don’t pay property taxes.  I suspect that the people making that argument have never been landlords.  Having owned a number of rental properties, trust me, property owners are calculating the expenses associated with ownership of the property, and are then setting the rent to be paid accordingly.  So rest assured, renters are in fact paying school taxes, albeit indirectly.
And to the writer of the anonymous letter sent to my home: Put your name on the next one!  Donkey!
 
Aubie Knight
Madison
Via e-mail

Printed in the July 26, 2012 edition.