The Kirkland City Council’s recent decision to impose a maximum property tax increase at a time when unemployment is at near record highs is a travesty. The council is telling us they can’t live within a budget so you and I must cut our household budgets to cover their inability to make tough decisions.

I opposed the annexation because I didn’t like the idea that there would be so many more restrictions. I was promised that my property tax would go down and my utility tax would go up, resulting in a neutral affect on my household budget. The reason given for supporting the annexation was that we would have better access to our government representatives since we could just go to Kirkland rather than having to go to Seattle to meet with the King County Council.

Now my property taxes are going up and I didn’t even know the council was discussing raising my taxes. When the county did this, they publicly advertised meetings where I was able to voice my dissatisfaction with their profligate ways. Then, I was allowed to vote against the tax increase and force them to make tough decisions. The only way to get government to live within its means is to stop allowing officials to take more and more of our hard-earned income without our input.

Property taxes are driving people who paid taxes, raised productive children and saved for retirement out of their homes. These tax increases have devastating effects on people who are struggling, particularly low-income people whose rent increases and it seems to them their landlords are capricious. It’s the government that is capricious. How much would the government save in subsidized housing, subsidized school meals, subsidized food stamps if they let us keep more of what we earn instead of trying to redistribute our money whimsically for political and personal gain? We must change the concept prevalent in the halls of power that the government controls us and we are responsible to it. It’s time for a tax revolt. The government reports to us and is responsible to us. We pay them, we hire them. Please join me in refusing to accept this travesty! What unemployed, retired or low-income person can afford to cover for the city council’s inability to budget?

Jeanie D. McCombs, Kirkland