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Beware of any claim that links increased government spending
to a tax cut. It
doesn’t work like that.
Local governments in Virginia
must, by law, adopt balanced budgets.
These budgets have two components:
taxes raised and taxes spent.
Virginia
law forces equilibrium (the balance) between these
two sides. If
one goes up, the other must go up.
If one goes down, the other must go down.
If spending goes up, taxes go up.
If spending goes down, taxes go down.
The two sides cannot go in opposite
directions.
Beware of any statewide candidate that wants to handcuff the
folks you elect locally.
The job is hard enough already.
Within the two sides of the budget equation—taxes raised
and taxes spent—the people you elect to represent
you locally on your board of supervisors, or town or
city council, have some discretion.
In the matter of balancing the two sides they
don’t—the two sides must balance—but within
each side they do. They
decide where the taxes raised will come from and
where the taxes spent will go.
Beware of any claim that links increased government spending
to a tax cut. It
doesn’t work like that.
Within a balanced budget, any tax burden lifted from the
backs of one set of payers must be laid onto the
backs of another. Within
a balanced budget, a dollar spent on one thing
cannot be spent on another.
If a new, additional dollar is to be spent it
must come, can only come, from one of two places: a
reduction in spending somewhere else, or the
increase of a new dollar on the taxes raised side.
Beware of any statewide candidate that wants to handcuff the
folks you elect locally.
The job is hard enough already.
The marketplace sets the value (what a willing buyer will
pay to a willing seller) of your house—not the governor,
not the lieutenant governor, not the attorney
general, not legislators, not mayors or town council
members or supervisors, not the tax assessor, not
the bank, not your Sunday school teacher.
The marketplace sets the value of your house.
Beware of any claim that links increased government spending
to a tax cut. It
doesn’t work like that.
The tax you pay on your house is determined by two
things—the value of your house, as set by the
marketplace, multiplied by the rate of taxation that
is set by your supervisors, or by your town and city
council members. The
governor doesn’t set this rate.
The lieutenant governor doesn’t set this
rate. The
attorney general doesn’t.
The legislators don’t.
The tax assessor doesn’t set it, nor does
your Sunday school teacher.
The folks you elect locally set this rate.
Beware of any statewide candidate that wants to handcuff the
folks you elect locally.
The job is hard enough already.
If you think this rate of taxation on your house is too
high, you can change it.
You have the ultimate weapon.
It’s called a ‘ballot.’
Use it. Vote
out the local folks who have set your rate too high.
It is easy. You
can do it.
Beware of any claim that links increased government spending
to a tax cut. It
doesn’t work like that.
And a few final things to remember:
(1) There is really only one kind of tax in this country.
It is income tax.
One way or another it all comes out of your
income;
(2) Service on your
local board of supervisors, your school board, your
town or city council ought to be like jury duty:
Everyone ought to have to serve for six
months. You’d
be a lot smarter, a lot less critical if you had to
do the job.
(3) It is spring,
true, but it is also the campaign season.
Don’t stand too close to a candidate this
time of year. That
warm water you feel running down your leg might not
be an April shower.
--
March 28, 2005
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