Thursday letters: Columbia finding new ways to take, squander our money

I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin and his allies for raising water and sewer rates and the utility franchise fee.

We folks out here in Ballentine are being financially raped by the time we pay federal income and FICA taxes, state income tax, Richland County property and vehicle taxes, and now our water rates are going up again. We need to rebel. Those of us who live in Ballentine and our neighbors over in Blythewood need to march on Columbia.

Mayor Benjamin and his allies are like sailors on a weekend pass in Singapore — spending our hard-earned money like drunken sailors. As President Ronald Reagan once said, the most feared words in American history are, “I am from the government, and I am here to help.”

Irmo