The P&C Letters to the Editor hit a new low Friday morning.
The editors allowed one of their favorite letter writers to embarrass himself. In his latest missive, Fritz Saenger of Mt. Pleasant, whom the editors awarded the Golden Pen Award last year for his advocacy of light-rail development (one of their hobby horses), shared his horror over how little he pays in property taxes since he moved here from Ohio. That's nothing to be embarrassed about, of course, although it might be an unpopular stance.
No, what's embarrassing is the mistake the editors allowed in print: Saenger points out that senior citizens are exempt from paying property taxes to the school district for operating expenses.
Duh. Where has he been for the last few years? Oh, wait. That would be Ohio.
No home owner in South Carolina pays taxes for operating expenses of schools because the sales tax supposedly raises enough to cover them. School taxes go strictly to capital expenses. The editors know that perfectly well.
Remember? You would if paying attention to some of the dumber moves of the state legislature in the last few years. Only businesses get soaked double for operating expenses, as the Charleston County School District knows to its sorrow.
Saenger also assumes the CCSD literacy program was working well, but that's another story.
Friday, June 17, 2016
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1 comment:
I wondered about that too. I don't know how the P-C editorial page staff vets letters, but it seems like it at least would have pointed out that Saenger's senior-citizen status has nothing to do with why he doesn't pay property taxes for school operating expenses. The same would be true if he were a 30-year-old living in a $3 million house.
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