Servants from cradle to grave

In our society's quest for "cradle to grave care," what we've created is a situation where government owns us from cradle to grave.

They call this retirement?

Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.

Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either.

The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.

"People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.

...The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.

Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes - perhaps $2,000 to the town - and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.

Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the program sounded interesting, as long as it wasn't limited to menial work. "It's certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging," he said.

There are certainly good reasons for seniors to stay active, for health and to advance their standard of living through additional income. But that's NOT what this program is about. It's about the State raising taxes so high people can't afford to stay in homes they've worked for all their life unless they agree to become servants to the state, paying off their "debt" at a wage rate most labor activists would be up in arms about. A $2,000 tax bill would take nearly 300 hours -- or almost two months of full time work -- to pay off at $7 an hour. And that two months wouldn't add a dime to the person's standard of living.

Yes, property taxes fund common services. But we've expanded the role and responsibility of government to the point those taxes have to be confiscatory. When seniors who could otherwise support themselves own their property but can't pay the taxes, the situation is clearly out of control. Adding double jeopardy to the situation is the dependency so many retirees have on a Social Security system that is breaking down. Their retirement isn't on their own assets... it's on IOUs managed by the government (you know, the guys that are "here to help").

If freedom is being self-sufficient and owing nothing to no man, there's precious little left in this country. This senior program shows again we are all now slaves to the supposedly benevolent god we've created in the State.