Okay, so you printed the letter where I sounded like an insane, anti-government, anti-tax fanatic that thinks most taxation is legalized robbery. That’s true. But, let’s get down to the math.

Island Transit wants to up the sales tax to almost a penny per dollar to their benefit. Let’s say a penny per dollar. Now, the very honorable Ken Marsh hired me and paid me $18 per hour before he folded and moved to New York. To make money on my labor, he charged his customers $45 an hour for my labor. They paid sales tax on that. At a penny per dollar, that would be 45 cents an hour for the transit. Add to that the penny I pay with the $12 take home pay, another dime rounded down, and the transit gets 55 cents per hour of sweat and toil I produce.

That’s a bit rich, about $4 per day, about $1,200 per year. I rode it once, so $1,200 per ride that took 5 hours from Lynnwood (it took my Datsun 90 minutes).

The only way out is to work off-island and pay for somebody else’s tax initiative and spend off-island. This I am willing to do just to spite my nose and Island Transit.

Scott Vanderlinden

Oak Harbor