Mayor Campbell: `We're rebuilding Iraq. Excuse me, what about Cleveland and Buffalo and all of our cities that need rebuilding?''
Since Bush's 2003 tax cuts states, counties and cities are boosting tax rates to meet the rising cost of government. Mayors, school officials and taxpayers from Virginia to Oregon say the tax burden in the U.S. is shifting from the federal government to states, cities and counties as local taxes are raised and services are cut. ``It doesn't make sense to think that you can balance the federal budget by reducing taxes and then going to war in Iraq,'' says Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell, 51, a Democrat. The Pentagon has spent more than $70 billion on the war since January 2003 and asked in May for $25 billion more. ` [more]