First of 10 Marxist planks

For those of you who stubbornly believe that somehow we are still a free republic and not a Marxist state, one need only read the Communist Manifesto. Marx makes it real easy. On Page 39 he lists 10 planks. Marx says you can call yourself anything you want but if you fulfill the 10 planks of communism, your are essentially communist.

I’ll be discussing each plank in this and the next nine letters.

The first plank is:

Abolition of property in land, i.e., no private property and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

Realistically, no one owns their homes or property in Illinois. If you think you do, don’t pay your property tax and see what happens. Property taxes effectively end the ownership of private property.

If you bought a washer and paid for it and took it home and someone walked out of your house with it, you’d call him a thief. Now imagine if you had to pay a yearly “washer tax.” Then, you wouldn’t really own the washer because it could be confiscated.

There is a way around property taxes. They are called user fees and it’s a much more equitable method of paying for what you use, and it also restores the right of private property.

If you send your kid to school, you pay. If you don’t, you don’t pay. Fire and police could be covered by sales taxes and user fees. I’d much rather pay a couple hundred bucks for a fire call than be charged a property tax for them. Sewer and water are paid for by use; why is it so hard to apply that idea to other services?

Want open space? Go buy some, comrade. The U.S. generates surplus money through the gas tax. If the gas tax was actually applied only to roads one of two things would happen: we’d have the nicest roads or we’d pay a lot less in gas tax.

Jeff Lonigro

St. Charles