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Meck tax appraisal system
works against homeowners
Mecklenburg County’s real estate appraisal system for taxation seems downright wrong-headed. It taxes unrealized capital gains, but apparently not unrealized capital losses.
The longer you stay in your home, paying off the mortgage over 15-30 years, the more vulnerable you become for being forced to sell the very asset you sought to have for retirement.
The only appraised value that holds up is: what you paid for it originally; second, the value of improvements; and third, annual increases by the generally accepted inflation index of the previous year.
Carolyn Lawson
Huntersville
What happened in Benghazi needs thorough investigation
To Observer editors and reporters: Seven weeks ago on Sept. 11, 2012 our ambassador and three other Americans died in Benghazi. It is obvious that facts are being withheld, hidden and under-reported. It is time stop the politics and do your jobs for the American people.
Harry McPherson
Statesville
In response to “Obama failed on Benghazi; must own up to his ‘cowardice’ ” (Oct. 29 Forum):
Response to Benghazi attack was reaction to facts at hand
The information that the Secretary of State received within two hours of the Benghazi incident was not vetted by the FBI or CIA. Within two hours the president could not, for certain, inform the public that this was truly a terrorist attack.
A president should not “shoot from the hip” like George W. Bush did when going to war over “weapons of mass destruction” that never were found.
To say that any president is a coward is disrespectful of the office, but to claim Obama is a coward is completely untrue.
Robin Oden
Stallings
In response to Leonard Pitts “Life is sacred outside the womb, too” (Nov. 1 Viewpoint):
In words Pitts chooses I see liberal agenda coming through
Leonard Pitts has always held my respect as a writer and a man who speaks up for the underdog, but I found a garish inconsistency in his latest column.
When describing the co-ed who was raped and has discovers she is pregnant, the baby is referred to as a “hateful seed.” Yet, when describing the pregnant mother of three who has just discovered she has cancer, the baby is referred to as “the child she carries inside.”
Is an unborn human life only referred to as actually “human” when it is wanted, but is otherwise something hateful and dirty? Is this the twisted, pick-and-choose logic of the liberal platform Pitts is attempting to represent?
Emily Williams
Belmont
Admit it, ‘big government’
can be a big help sometimes
To all my dear “keep government out of my business” friends and commuters:
Last week as I waited on I-77 for the sun to rise so I could change my flat tire, I was greeted by an N.C. DOT Emergency Response vehicle.
While I’m capable of changing a flat, that extra bit of reassurance, bright lights, and much sturdier jack was a well-spent amount of our tax dollars.
I defy any of you partisan commuters not to have a great big smile on your face – and not a thought in the world about “how much does this cost?” – when the nice DOT assistance man pulls up in his bright yellow truck! Thanks N.C. DOT!
Bob McDonnell
Mooresville
In response to “Neighbors angry over Obama display” (Oct. 31 CharlotteObserver.com):
Harmless prank or not, lynching is a painful part of our history
The writers are president and staff historian of the Levine Museum of the New South.
The article on the Charlotte Halloween display showing President Obama in a lyncher’s noose has been picked up across the nation.
Perhaps the instigator thought it was a harmless prank, not realizing that more than 4,700 people were lynched in America between the 1880s and 1960s, over 70 percent of them African-Americans.
Or, that lynching was often an act of racial terrorism, intended to keep black people from getting “above their place.”
Levine Museum of the New South’s exhibit “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America” explores that painful past. It can help us understand that history remains “in the ground,” affecting all of us to this day.
Emily Zimmern
Tom Hanchett
Charlotte
Careful, Ms. Baum; that column could easily backfire on you
The quaint old phrase “hoisted by one’s own petard” comes to mind in reading Op-Ed columnist Caroline Baum’s “Will women get what they really want” (Nov. 2 Viewpoint).
A petard was an old-timey bomb, used to blast a hole in a door or wall. If you weren’t careful planting it, it could “hoist” you right out of your socks.
Ms. Baum fusses about the Left’s concern with matters of interest mainly to women – like reproductive rights.
Then, she ends up fluttering her eyelashes at the hunk that she wants to be her president.
BAM!
Climb down from that tree, Ms. Baum, and put your socks back on.
Ted Lucas
Charlotte
