A lesson from California has some bearing on the Dougherty County Commission right now, but luckily a few of the Commissioners seem to have gotten it. It’s about time too, because to many governments in this country have yet to grasp one of the most simple concepts that’s out there. That there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Dougherty County Commissioners recently discussed the issue of pay raises for Dougherty County police officers. It seems that they feel a pay raise is essential, and they’re right. The best and brightest are finding their way to other departments with higher wages. That’s how a free market works after all, and that’s not a bad thing in the least. As there is crime in Dougherty County, people want those crimes solved quickly and efficiently. That’s pretty hard to do when your best and brightest are working in Atlanta.
However, what some of the Commissioners didn’t grasp was that there had to be a way to pay for it. Money doesn’t grow on trees after all, so an increase in wages had to be offset somehow. When District 6 Commissioner Jack Stone said that raising taxes might be necessary to raise taxes, saying “I’m coming up for re-election the next time, but even if it costs me (votes), I’m going to do what I have to do to get our folks more money,” a fellow commissioner laid it all out.
Lamar Hudgins called Stone’s bluff. “We can raise the millage rate today if that’s what everyone wants to do,” Hudgins said. “But remember, we were talking about furloughs at one point, and now that’s been taken off the table. But you can be a hero and make a motion to raise taxes if that’s what you want to do.” Oddly enough, nothing happened.
Raising taxes is never popular, but new programs and higher wages always are, which brings us back to California. A huge part of their problem is that people California love social programs. They want socialized medicine, and special funds to protect muskrats or something. But when it comes to paying for it, they just don’t want to do it, so they refuse to pay higher taxes.
California, as a result, had to take out loans to pay for these programs but had no reasonable expectation of revenue increasing. In fact, they have every reason to assume that expenses will skyrocket. No one there can tell the citizens of that state what their choices really are. They can either pay more, or they can get less. You can’t have both.
In fact, that’s part of the reason Libertarians are against so many social programs. It’s not that social programs are necessarily evil, is that they must be paid for. That means higher taxes for someone, and probably for everyone. No one wants higher taxes, so we have opted to fight against taxation and understand that there will be fewer services provided.
Luckily, some folks on the Dougherty County Commission seem to actually understand that. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
That has always been the dilemma of legislators at the local, state and federal level.
However, the answer always ends up being raising tax revenue. They even get creative with it, Super speeder taxes & sin taxes are examples.
They raise sales taxes and then run for reelection on the platform that they did not raise property taxes. The next election cycle, they reverse it.
Look at California outright threatening taxpayers with the “apocalypse” of shutting down parks, raising school class sizes, laying off LEOs. All just so they can justify raising taxes yet again.
We’re reaching our breaking point. So in answer to the titled query, I say: Lower taxes. Cut services. Lay off people. I hate it for their families, but we cannot afford to tote them.
I’m right there with you.
The “apocalypse” that is always threatened is usually the funding for things that people want and/or expect from government. Threats to lay off police officers and teachers, close parks and zoos, and a whole bunch of other scary rhetoric usually misses the point that any government in this country usually has significant money going towards programs that the public doesn’t even know about, much less utilize, or the whole pile of wasteful spending also typical in most governments.
As for the super speeder law, the police shouldn’t be used for revenue generation. Fines are supposed to be for punishing violators, not for raising money for the State, but that’s not how lawmakers seem to see it. Listen to reasoning for adding light trucks to the list of vehicles who’s operation requires a seat belt. It’s never about saving lives, but revenue.
When people complain about taxes, it’s important that they understand that taxes are there to pay for all these services people claim they want. If you’re like me, you’d rather have your own money instead of an Office of Spending Your Tax Dollars On Things You Don’t Care About. There’s plenty of them out there too.
We haven’t seen bad yet…but it’s coming.