Taxes are already to high, let's cut the budget

To the Editor:

Ashburnham already has one of the highest residential tax rates in Massachusetts. I realize our town's leaders are trying to improve the town but instead of continuing to come up with "great" ideas to spend money, how about coming up with some great ideas to cut spending. I would love to see a ballet vote on someone's idea to "cut" spending on something. I have numerous "great" ideas that I could increase my personal spending on but unfortunately I can't get a raise every time I think of something else to buy. Not everyone's income is keeping up with the great ideas the town is coming up with to spend additional money. If we want extra money for a project, how about doing what everyone else has to do and cut spending in another area. Prioritize to determine what is really important and what we don't really need and can do without.

I see in the paper we have a number of new Proposition overrides coming up, Prop 2 1/2 overrides for funding "studies" which will inevitably lead to Prop 2 1/2 overrides for actual construction, Prop 2 1/2 overrides for the schools to "restore" functions that were cut because the last two to three Prop 2 1/2 overrides on this subject were not approved (What the hell, keep trying until you get what you want. Just to be fair, if it passes this time I wonder if we will have another three votes to confirm that everyone really wants the additional taxes.) etc. … I won't list every override that's being asked for. Note: not all of these are bad ideas but instead of taking the easy route and raising taxes again, let's try cutting something less important instead. I'm sure "someone" will be upset no matter what is cut but let's make the hard spending choices that benefit the most residents instead of small special interests. If we can't find something less important than maybe these issues really aren't that important after all? I don't know, but let's look into it.

I realize we want to be a showcase (showoff? not sure which is the right word here) community but enough already, not everyone is into playing the high society game and trying to outdo the neighboring towns (is it ok to acknowledge there is a bit of a class struggle going on in town or is that still too politically incorrect). We need to decide if we want to be a small "bedroom" community or develop into a larger metropolis. If we want the biggest and best of everything then we need to bring in some business, industry, and new housing to pay for the biggest and best of everything. If we want to stay small then we need to learn to live within the limited budget that goes along with being a cozy small community. Ashburnham's Residential Tax Rate is already among Massachusetts highest 16 percent, do we really have to shoot for the top10 percent? (See www.dor.state.ma.us/apps/TaxRates/taxrate.pdf.)
Keith St. Marie
Ashburnham