Dear Loudoun: Leave My Sandwich Alone.

It appears that in November, Loudoun County voters will have yet another opportunity to send more of their hard-earned money to the county treasury. Voters will get to decide whether the county should start collecting a meals tax of as much as 4 percent on all ready-to-eat foods purchased from restaurants and grocery stores.

You might ask: What does the county plan to do with these funds if Loudoun residents are gullible enough to fall for this scam? Well, all of the proceeds are earmarked for our beloved public schools to build a few more multimillion-dollar palaces that will then each house a few hundred eager students. Some of the funds will also be used to "service the debt" for schools already built. That's a polite way of saying we are making interest payments for schools already purchased on the county credit card.

This monstrosity was proposed by Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge), who also requested that the question be placed on the ballot below the school bond referendum. His logic in doing this was obvious. Once you have voted to borrow yet another $112 million for schools, what's a few extra dollars on your restaurant bill? The only supervisor to vote against the proposal was Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), probably the lone advocate for the taxpayer on the current board.

What I find most offensive about this proposal is that it reflects the attitude so common in politicians: that certain types of behavior need to be punished. If you have a nice car or want to eat in a restaurant, then you are obviously a rich person who needs to give more of your money to the government. You should be riding public transportation and eating pork and beans from a can. In reality, I think anyone coping with the stress of living in the Washington area deserves to have an occasional restaurant meal or prepared sandwich without the county punishing them for it.

I'm also an advocate for taxing those who will benefit from the service. Instead of taxing the entire population, how about a tax on school lunches or items bought from vending machines on school property? This is in line with the current mind-set of the Loudoun Board of Supervisors, because any student who would dare indulge in a candy bar has too much money and needs to pay tribute to the county.

This latest scam should sound familiar to anyone who has lived in the county for the past decade. The same idea was tried in 1998 and was rejected by the voters by a 3 to 1 margin. I hope that Loudoun residents will be wise enough to reject it by an even higher margin this November.

Many members of the Board of Supervisors are new, voted into office on a platform of taking the county in a new direction. Based on the newsletters and e-mails I receive almost weekly, they are certainly spending a lot of our money to tell us what a wonderful job they are doing. But actions speak louder than words, and so far their actions are nothing more than the failed tax-and-spend schemes we're seen before.

If this proposed tax is an indicator of their new direction, we all need to hold on to our wallets.

-- Clark Kidd

Potomac Falls