The Editor,
Re: " Tax increase due to extravagance," Letters, June 22.
When paying our city taxes, we Richmond citizens should heed the words of 17th century French Minister of Finance Jean Baptiste Colbert who said, "The art of taxation is like the plucking of a goose, getting the maximum amount of feathers from the minimum amount of hissing."
It appears that while we all have a pot to hiss in, and a window to hiss out of, we are not doing enough of either. Hissing at family and friends will only get them hissing right back.
What is needed is to make our city councillors understand that there is virtue in living within a budget. All of us taxpayers do it everyday. There isn't an unlimited supply of feathers to be plucked - the goose has had enough plucking for one year.
Alan Halliday
Richmond
