Take my taxes- please!

I read in the Herald this morning Tax Commissioner Cory Fong's proposal to rebate (good a name as any for it) a portion of our property taxes. A total of $116 million to go back to the taxpayers of North Dakota. To put that in a real world way, a typical $120,000 house would see a credit of $217 a year against the tax bill, presumably each year until a large surplus no longer exists.

Now, at the risk of encouraging the liberals out there, I have to say this- that's hardly supper for our gang at Sanders. Less than $20 a month. I have more change in the ashtray of my truck. Can we instead just find a use for that money we've already sent to Bismarck?

Might I suggest an alternate use for that money? How about we fix the damn roads in this state? No one could make the argument we don't need it- city or rural. The roads and bridges in the rural areas could certainly use some repair. This beautiful city of ours has roads that are badly broken up. As Commissioner Fong says in his viewpoint article, we are experiencing an economic boom in our state. What booming economy can get along without infrastructure?

Now I know the same argument can be made in reverse- $116 million doesn't buy a lot of road repair, either. And we don't know how many years this will go on- my guess is not many. But instead of me going to the movies with the wife and spending my rebate once a month, I'd like to see the money spent on one of government's few legitimate purposes.