Column for August 30, 2007

Oxymoron of the week: government efficiency

This November, I want you to pay real close attention to the ballot in the upcoming election. Before you snarl at me like PETA at Michael Vick, it is not what you may be thinking. On the ballot this year will be a referendum or two. We are almost sixty days away from a significant decision for taxpayers.

As some of you may know, the State of North Carolina has approved two options for local governments to use to increase taxes. One is a .4% land transfer fee and the other is a quarter percent increase in sales tax. Voters in each local district will have to approve the taxation in order for it to be considered by a local government. A vote of affirmation would allow the county to pass one or the other but not guarantee that one would be enacted. A negative majority referendum vote would kill the idea completely. No matter how you slice it, we are talking about the potential of higher taxes.

One thing about the sales tax increase that bothers me is that we would fork over that money to be paid to a notoriously thieving system. The state collects sales tax money we pay to retailers. The state takes its portion and then disperses the portions allotted to the local governments. I remember that several years back the state had an unbalanced budget. To help make that budget balance, the state simply decided that they would not parse out the share of the sales tax due local governments.

The incredible thing is that in order to help local governments recover some of the absconded cash, the state allowed local governments to raise local sales taxes even higher. Those taxes again would go right into the hands that stole from local governments to begin with. Why should the state ever be trusted with more of our money? Even if it is just one quarter of a percent increase, I do not trust the system to be honest.

Keep in mind that the state that would be taking this money is the same state that has robbed from the highway trust fund and never replenished it, even after having well over a billion dollar surplus last fiscal year and refused to put the money into the trust fund, return it to the over taxed citizens, or pay the towns the money previously mentioned.

If only we had a nearby harbor and the proposed taxes were on tea! Do we not sent millions, even billions to our state, county, and towns already? Oh, I know, it is for the children, right?

Why drain the equity in someone's home at the time of the sale just for more money for adequately funded schools? I just looked at my home equity for a financial check up, and I would be slapped with an unjust distribution of the equity I worked hard to achieve for the benefit of extra revenue to an already funded school district.

Property taxes, as it is, are inherently unfair. People like myself, who are property owners, pay taxes while those who rent do not. In Selma, that means only 40% of the citizens here pay the freight for our schools.

If you really think you own the land you have, just stop paying your property taxes and you will find that the feudal overlords of government will confiscate that property and sell it to make their cut of your hard earned property value. Now the proposal is to penalize those who sell their hard earned investment.

If the triple tier bus schedule proposed for Clayton could be avoided by mysteriously coming up with money for new buses, then we can certainly find areas in which we can be more frugal with the money we supply government.

I sincerely hope that the citizenry of Johnston and other counties will have the backbone and intelligence to vote NO on both proposals for increased taxation. We already have a huge bond we just approved and a lottery that were supposed to help with school construction. I want accountability and efficiency with that money, not just the milking of us citizens for more of it.