Rep. Josh Cockroft
Oklahoma City - With so much going on at the national and state level right now, we sometimes forget about the importance of our local economy and local government entities. Local sales taxes support municipal public safety, roads, schools and drainage and sewer systems. Even if your state and federal representatives are doing everything right, your life will be drastically affected by how your immediate neighborhood and town are functioning.
Although schools receive state funding, much of their key infrastructure revenue comes from local sales and property taxes. Small school districts are especially vulnerable to a decrease in revenue. Outdated drainage and sewer systems can lead to backups, flooding and other problems that can destroy homes. Even if your community is relatively safe, good municipal public safety forces reduce insurance rates.
We have all grown up around friends and neighbors who are part of the local economy. When we spend money in their shops or at their places of employment, we are contributing to their well-being. We are also helping to develop a robust economy that will provide local jobs for our children as they grow up.
One way to help boost your local community is to buy local. Even small towns with just one gas station will see a great difference in local revenue if you support that gas station rather than one in the next town over. Some of us live near a bigger city. We may at times spend money there for convenience. Especially in these hard economic times though, we should consider what our local community offers and whether or not our money would be better spent there.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Another thing that people can do to help their local economies is this: if you can't buy local... for example, you live in a small town and there's no electronics store and you want to buy a new TV... buy it online from a retailer that has stores in the state and will deliver or ship it to you, like Wal-Mart or Best Buy or whomever. If it's delivered to you, then your local community gets the sales tax revenue, not the big city where the store itself is located.
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