Oct
1
To the TABOR II protesters…
Filed Under Non-Fiction, Politics, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Dear TABOR II protester woman I just heard on the radio,
You just said that you are from Colorado (the only other state that has a TABOR) and that it doesn’t work there. The reason that you cited is because you have “groups” that are at odds with each other and they shouldn’t be. They are being forced to compete with each other over receiving tax payer funds.
No shit. They should be.
What exactly is the opposite of that scenario that you would prefer? That every single tax payer funded organization has no shortage of funding? In this wondrous scenario of yours does money grow on trees or does it just fall out of my ass? This is the reason for TABOR – there is a scarcity of money and some of us taxpayers would like to be able to keep a little bit of it to pay our bills, put food on the table and occasionally take a vacation. You know, all the reasons why we bother to get up and go to work in the morning.
In a perfect world money would be no object. I would love to feed the worlds children and dig a fresh water well in every worldwide community that doesn’t already have one. That’s just not possible though. The fact that you’re bitching about Planned Parenthood having to compete with schools over funding just pisses me off. For the record I do support Planned Parenthood but there are more important things than free rubbers and secret abortions for 15 year old girls. Namely, the fact that YOU and every politician out there has his hand in my pocket trying to see just how much more money I can afford to pay in taxes before I throw up my hands and would find it easier to just move elsewhere or become homeless, spending my days hanging out in the public library reading (not a bad gig!).
In my humble opinion, government has a duty to decide how much of a tax burden it’s citizenry can comfortably handle and then decide how it would like to spend those funds. It should not be deciding all of the fun neat things it would like to do and then decide how much to tax me to pay for all of that. I don’t get to do that. I’d love to see the look on my bosses face if I went to him and said that he has to give me a raise because I already bought a nicer car even though I couldn’t afford it.
TABOR is about holding politicians to a standard – this far and no more. It’s a way of setting the limit of what the state or municipal government is allowed to tax it’s citizens and forcing the government to work within those restrictions. I’m all for it. Frankly, those that aren’t are either crazy or work for an organization that they know is first on the chopping block!
Comments
2 Comments so far
2 items, one more centrally opposes your post than the other so I’ll open with that.
TABOR is bullshit and only causes problems. Further limiting the effectiveness of legislators we probably already agree are incompetent is not a good idea. It definitely ties their hands when choices need to be made, but will it result in lower taxes? No—it forces legislators to be devious with the way things are funded and no fees or taxes will ever get dropped in a slowdown. Also road repair will almost never get done as that is usually the top layer of fat for state gov’t, either direct for state roads, or indirectly for cities and towns that depend on state funds to do their part—all but the most critical DOT projects get cut because they’ll simply never have the money in a TABOR scenario. Poor states will always bitch about their high tax rates but it is inevitable. To have basic facilities like larger, better funded states, will always cost the rural states a higher percentage of their money. I agree that with cities and towns, fast-rising property values should not necessarily drive everyone’s property tax up incrementally–just because Smallville property is now worth 10% more on average, it doesn’t mean the town government costs 10% more to run. However, to keep in line with the valuation and maintain relatively higher property values than the neighboring communities, it is nice to be able to move more items the town had on the ‘nice to have’ instead of ‘let’s do’ list when they have the money and opportunity to do so. If the property goes up for whatever reason, the town should be doing their part to maintain. To force some citizen-initiative-imposed bullshit on them to cap the budget on pegs that don’t make sense, is retarded. And so transitively I would say TABOR supporters are retarded as well.
The second point was that you are not taking planned parenthood seriously enough—obviously you’ve never had a run in with it, but ‘free condoms and secret abortions’ are actually saving lives by preventing unwanting kids. I think that is important.
Well, I believe that TABOR is an over the top response to the over the top performance of decades of financial mis-managment. At this point, I would rather run a few departments into the ground to prove a point and fix the system rather than operate at status quo.
You simply cannot maintain a scenario of piling more taxes upon more taxes. We tax everything and not only do we tax it but tax it at a higher rate than nearly everyone else. It needs to stop and clearly the only way to do that is to impose spending limits upon the legislature. I disagree that this is simply the way that it is.
One of the most expensive projects we have that people claim we must maintain to keep both our commerce and tourism sectors going us the turnpike. However, we most heavily tax the section of turnpike most heavily used by commuters in the greater Portland area rather than by those using it as an “end to end” road. We don’t even charge any tolls at all North of Augusta! Do you have any idea how much it costs to plow and maintain that section of road!?
So, until some sensibility is brought into use in the legislature I will vote over and over again in favor of spending limitations and tax payor bill of rights. DOT and everyone else be damned. Yes, even Planned Parenthood – if you want social welfare programs (and I do) figure out how to do so within a reasonable budgetary constraint.
Just because I want a shiny new car doesn’t mean that I get to go out and buy one if I can’t afford it and just because the legislature would like to start some new program or build a new bridge doesn’t mean that they can jack up my taxes and take more money to pay for it. They should find a way to pay for it either by eliminating funding elsewhere or going without.
Our legislature and most voters would do well to apply the “Want vs. Need” model to governmental spending.