Letter to the Editor

New tax isn't only possible souce of income

Friday, August 8, 2014

To the editor:

The article pertaining to the half-cent sales tax did not reveal the total story. It only presented a sales pitch for the benefit of the officials of the county. It is called, normally, the easy way out of a mess.

Why, over the many years that the deteriorated condition existed as explained by the newspaper article, wasn't there any actions taken to repair the failed parts of the system as they occurred?

It appears that the county and city governments think that the only money source is to tax the citizens, which includes approximately 34.57 percent live in poverty. There are two very important questions that should be answered prior to placing an additional tax on the already overburdened citizens. First, since the hospital is an absolute necessity for economic development, why doesn't the Quorum Court use the economic development funds to repair the facility rather than give the money away to corporations that just promise to provide jobs and nothing else?

The Bureau of Economic Analysis Department provided a report where $95 million a year is lost to the Mississippi County economy due to outside-of-county workers taking their paychecks home.

Additionally, why aren't there efforts to obtain federal grants to repair the hospital? There are special federal funds allocated to assist seven Southern states of which Arkansas is one of the seven due to the many poor who live in this area. Why hasn't the Quorum Court made efforts during these past years to obtain federal grants so as to repair these deteriorated facilities and equipment?

Remember, the economic development funds are taxpayer funds and repair of the critically needed hospital is an economic development project. The newspaper article stated that fact by stating that the other hospitals in Jonesboro and Memphis would gain the funds that would have been spent in Blytheville and Osceola.

Ray Clouse
Blytheville