I attended a hearing of the Nassau County Legislature prior to the November elections. When it came my turn to speak, two Republican legislators kept up a steady cross conversation, replete with belly laughs. I appeared before the legislature to address the cutting of funds to agencies for children, abused women, drug and alcohol patients, and the mentally ill. In spite of their rude behavior, I told them that the county just poured a billion dollars down the drain by hocking Nassau County tobacco money for some $200 million and cutting funds for our vulnerable people of our population would be only chicken feed if they knew how to handle the money entrusted to them by the taxpayers of Nassau County.

On Dec. 21, I read on the front page of Newsday GOP leaders say 500 people could be fired by New Years. I personally have been an anti-tax activist since 1978 when I was chairman of the Wantagh-Levittown Taxpayers Revolt and when I ran for Presiding Supervisor of the Town of Hempstead, to cut property taxes by 2/3. Now the county wants to fire 500 employees for the holidays. What's next, a boost in property tax?

Neither one is fair to the people of Nassau County. The only way I can see out of the mess is a half percent sales tax increase as a temporary measure and that the county must put the brakes on wild spending such as buying a building for $26 million from a seller who bought the property for $500,000 a year ago. Finally, the people of Nassau County should get a 1 percent cut in sales tax after the county gets its house in order which should be no problem, as the United States is enjoying the greatest prosperity in our history.

Ben Slutsky