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1~~4 "Those who serve in Local Government earnestly plead for Counties and Cities to be provided with additional sources of revenue as a means to meet the multitude of needs for proper urban development. Home rule is of little conse- quence unless Local government has the mews to do the job the home folks want done. Local Government is expected to provide such basic services and facilities as water supply, sanitary sewer lines, trach and garbage disposal, police and fire protection, ambulance service, hospital facilities, public health, mental health programs, libraries, parks and recreation, and good schools. These are things essential to daily living. They are basic needs, not luxury items. In this age of affluence, the people demand that some level of government in this great nation meet these simple needs. The people feel that they are being heavil~ taxed, but that their tax money is not being used to meet their greatest needs. National surveys show the the great frustration and discontent of people with their government arises out of the failure to do the thing - which effect the quality of daily life. Historically, Local Government, which is closest to the people, has properly been given the task of meeting these needs. However, Counties and Cities have not been given sources of revenue sufficient to meet these needs. Until recent years the power to levy ad valorem taxes was virtually the only means available to Counties and Cities in North Carolina to obtain funding. The advent of Revenue Sharing and the one-cent (1C) local option sales tax have helped, and may have pointed the way to proper solution to the problem. In any given locality there are a limited number of property owners and property taxpayers. Usually the number is only a small part of the total population. Therefore, to require property owners to carry all of the burden of funding Local ~ Government is unfail and unrealistic. zn self-defense, property owners must become anti-progress. They fear being taxes out of home ownership to pay for services demanded by non-property owners. The Experience in Cumberland County is that of any community where there has been extensive urban development. Here the needs for revenue have been severe and frustrating. Resistance to further increase in ad valorem taxes have became intense. The one-cent (14) local option sales tax was approved by a large majority in a referendum. It is regarded as a fair and equitable balance to the ad valorem tax. The Federal Grant Program represents the most complicated method of providing local funding. Since the extent and duration of these grant programs is always doubtful, Counties and Cities often cannot fit them into effective fiscal planning. Additionally since many of these are so-called seed grants, they are deliber- ately designed to put the Local Government in the position where it is forced to add the funding of these grant programs to the local tax base when the grants expire. This only intensified the dissatisfaction of people with political officials. There is con- siderable waste of time and money in many of these grant programs. Some are only polit programs and experimental in nature to begin with. Another just criticism is that in grantmanship the race is to the swift and often to the least in need. The Federal Revenue Sharing Program is unique in the recent history of governmental affairs. It is a single example of where the Federal Government (Which admittedly has the best sources of revenue) directly shared this revenue with Local Governments with no strings or guidelines attached. This is a most effective means of giving strength and aid to Local Government as it seeks to meet the '.daily needs and demands of the people. It is the way around the deadly drag of monsterous centralized bureaucracy by which the American people feel severely oppressed.