Page 14 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • July 27, 2011 World War II, Korea, and Vietnam can keep cashing their benefits checks, which they richly deserve, along with their Social Security checks, which they also deserve as long-term taxpayers. The take-down of bin Laden was brilliantly handled by Navy Seals whose courage and competence was firmly established during that operation. The cutting edge of America’s sword is honed and kept sharp with Navy Seals and Navy pilots, U.S. Marines, Army Airborne and Ranger troops, and Army helicopter pilots and tank crews who go into the thick of things and risk their necks to discourage any more outrages like the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. People in combat or combat-support units constitute about 16 percent of the armed forces, and the medical and electronic services they depend on probably constitute another four percent. That means that 20 percent of the vital and courageous people in the armed forces are underpaid considering their hardships and risks. It also means that 80 percent of the people in the armed services are overpaid, and that we could save a bundle if those services that aren’t related to combat or direct combat support were sub-contracted to domestic or foreign civilians at realistic wages calculated on the fact that what they’re doing is work with minimal qualifications and little likelihood of death or dismemberment. This could reduce the inventory of generals, colonels, and senior sergeants idling away their time until they reach retirement age. With the best will in the world, we should not turn the armed forces of the United States into an entitlement program for people who wasted their time in high school and are now using Mother Army as the last safety net before honest work at the absurd minimum wage. If the country can’t cash benefit checks for combat veterans of past wars, or provide the ones who were really unlucky with decent hospital care, the bullet-proof time-servers could be in just as much trouble as the rest of us. Entitlements in general need a serious look. A friend whose honesty made him unpopular in local politics once pointed out that a high school teacher who rides out 20 years with a BA and no morals charges is paid about the same as a full professor with three degrees and publications who lands a job at a very respectable college. The high-wage pattern is true of administrators in the education industry and in many other branches of government. Do not expect people to relinquish three wage increases in a row because the system is springing leaks. They won’t do it. In their place, I wouldn’t do it either. Nobody ever believes he or she is making too much money. Those who recognize it quickly rationalize it: “Joe Dokes gets the same paycheck as I do, and he’s a bigger bozo than I could ever dream of being.” It is the real world that determines wages, and the real world seems to indicate that people not involved in productive work like manufacturing or farming, the healing arts, or the peermonitored professions are substantially overpaid. That is why so many of them are no longer employed. Ideas to consider for saving money at the federal level: Ban cigarette production. The cost of cigarettes may bring in revenue, but people who smoke run the risk of dying from numerous cigarette-related diseases. The bribes the politicians of both parties depend on may hurt these politicians by their absence, but the end of smoking will help the taxpayers who pay for the medically supervised demise of the indigent in what can only be a national benefit. The fact that a cigarette ban would spare millions of Americas an utterly miserable death – I’ve seen it up close – adds a moral incentive to a pragmatic incentive. Support tourism. Believe it or not, the Chinese love America – “the beautiful land” in their elegant picture writing -- and find it a fascinating place, just as the Japanese and South Koreans did when they still had money. The people who have a manufacturing base may help make up the number of American manufacturing jobs they have eaten up. Conversely, the Chinese do not like their government very much. They are right. The Chinese politicians, according to my spies, are dumping their investments in American securities without much regard for whether America goes broke. The Germans and the Japanese are holding onto theirs, either because of sentimental loyalty or, more probably, because they know what would happen to them if the United States tanks. The Japanese alone are said to own 40 percent of our long-term debt. Any help sent to tsunami victims was probably a good investment. Curtail pointless scholarships. The idea that we can turn every kid into a scholar with a taxpayer subsidized diploma is as empty as the idea that we can turn every malcontent into a war hero by putting him or her in uniform. Scholarships on the public tab should be limited to those areas of study America needs: medical arts, hard sciences, and strategic languages. Especially to be looked into is the concept that people who come here, let us say, without benefit of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, are somehow entitled to studying English at the expense of taxpayers who have supported our society for 40 or 50 years, sometimes as veterans, and always as productive workers. We should not be cruel to people who have arrived here recently, and we should not be cruel to the children of people who may have sidestepped a few regulations -- but this is a lifeboat situation we’re in. Subsidized higher education for people who have never been either soldiers or taxpayers is much too sweet a deal. The programs may indeed provide employment for teachers and administrators who are not quite Ivy League, but it may also force people who have worked themselves out of time and energy paying for the Cold War and the War on Terror to face a dreadful reality: For all their hard work, they have somehow lost the War on Poverty. Life has its little joys. I was glum about postponing Social Security until I learned that if things aren’t fixed up in Congress by Aug. 2, the checks won’t be in the mail. Absent checks are something those of us who are, or ever have been, self-employed have long since gotten accustomed to. We just never thought the federal government would be involved. Despite the myths that the old folks live on dog food, the people in America who are 62 and over are the best-off people in the country because much of their income is federally insured. The real poverty cases are kids, especially children of single parents or people who actually work for the minimum wage. If the federal government can no longer afford Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and pensions for former government employees, those of us who aren’t shackled by a paranoid fear of other races whose members are also citizens will be turned into potential revolutionaries and can man the barricades in walkers and wheelchairs. Washington might have to bring the service men and women back from Iraq and Afghanistan to keep the streets safe from people with bifocals and pacemakers. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” as Janis Joplin once told us. Every few months, Washington seems to warn us that the United States is about to go broke. For all I know, Washington may be telling the truth. After all, it’s always possible that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were about to seize control of Chicago before Custer saved us all at the Little Bighorn, or that Congress has been infiltrated by aliens from outer space. While Washington is in the throes of bankruptcy, a town near here just received in excess of $300,000 to hire three new paid firefighters. I have not a word to say against hiring paid firefighters. You will never know how important a firefighter is until one of them saves your kid, your spouse, or your house. Firefighters are responsible consumers of the taxpayers’ money because they actually fight fires. They also pay taxes and shop at local stores, which means they are part of the economic infrastructure. Let’s keep the firefighters and the police on the payroll and pay them with money we save on bribing people overseas who do not shop in local stores and pull kids out of burning buildings, but take our money while they shelter the people who burn the buildings. Imagine how many firefighters, police officers, and schoolteachers could we pay for the $3 billion that we sent to the “friendly” country that sheltered Osama bin Laden and let him build a complex with walls a yard thick and barbed wire frosting on top. I’ll bet bin Laden paid one heck of a bribe to the local board of adjustment to get a variance for that monstrosity. He wouldn’t get a variance around here. Too many people saw the World Trade Center towers collapse when they knew people who might have been inside the towers, and some actually were. No more bribes for any country that shelters terrorists – and no more U.S.-made weapons systems, free, discount, or retail. We will save billions so that those who served in Let’s just get serious about getting serious Tax assessor reports fewer appeals (continued from page 9) She added that last year’s reassessment was well timed, since the previous review of property values, a full revaluation, was carried out at the height of the real estate market in 2005. Home prices have dropped throughout the country since that time. In preparation for the 2010 reassessment, the Ho-HoKus Council appropriated $60,000 for the reassessment and hired Appraisal Systems, Inc. of Glen Rock to carry out the project. The reassessment was completed at the end of 2010, after which time borough property owners received letters announcing their new property values. The borough’s tax rate was adjusted to reflect those new values. Revaluations and reassessments ensure that taxes are uniform throughout the borough, and help keep assessed values in line with market values. When making a determination as to whether a municipal revaluation is required, the New Jersey Division of Taxation evaluates time, ratio, and coefficient. Time refers to whether a municipality has had a revaluation or a reassessment within the last 10 years. Ratio is the difference between the sale price of a home and its market value. In most cases, the state is concerned with ratios of less than 85 percent, which indicate the housing market is too far ahead of the true value of a property. In recent years, the question has been whether the assessed value is too high. Coefficient is the difference between the average ratio and an individual ratio. The state looks for deviation of over 12 percent, at which time a revaluation may be ordered. Although the state did not order a revaluation or reassessment for the borough, the overall decline in real estate prices over the last five-year period led borough officials to consider a reassessment to stem the potential for tax appeals. Borough officials also wanted Ho-Ho-Kus taxpayers to have a fair and equitable reassessment of present market values. The reassessment process is less extensive, and less expensive, than a full revaluation. Borough officials opted to pursue a reassessment last year because they said the 2005 revaluation had left the borough with accurate records. Inspectors involved in last year’s project attempted to visit each borough property to check for any updates. Prior to the 2005 revaluation, the borough had undergone a reassessment in the mid-1990s. J. CRUSCO