Thursday, August 26, 2010

TANSTAAFL*

No one particularly likes taxes and all of us want our government — at all levels — to be efficient. However, we all expect our government to deliver certain services (police and fire protection, good roads, clean water, etc.) and to deliver those services well, and on demand.

This simply cannot be done with out financial support (taxes). Each year, it costs more to provide those services than it did the previous year. Yet, very few of us actually want our government to cut any of these services. This is why your city or county or school board will need more money this year, just to stay even with last year, never mind accommodating growth.

But, the public hearing on the new county tax rate I attended last week was an eye-opener. The commissioners proposed that our tax rate drop by a penny on property values that had dropped by 8-10 percent over the last year. In simple terms, that means that the vast majority of the people in that crowded court room last week would see a much lower county tax bill. But, to hear them talk, one would have thought that the county was asking for a huge increase.

At the same time this was going on, there was grumbling in the room about services. Roads. Bea's Kitchen. Roads again. Even more roads. So, these people want government, and the services government provides, but they don't want to pay taxes. How can that work?

What these people have forgotten — along with just about everyone else who hammer local government officials about taxes — is that the State of Texas has balanced its budget for the better part of two decades by forcing counties and cities and school districts to fund more and more of what used to be the State’s obligations. It isn't that the State is spending less money, far from it. It's that fewer and fewer of our tax dollars are making it back to Milam County.

You’ve heard of “unfunded mandates,” right? That's a big part of what's at play in the tax rates set by your county commissioners or your city council or your school board.

What's more, it's obvious by the vitriol on display last week that our state's leaders have done a masterful job deflecting the blame for local tax rates. This is not to say that our local guys are all saints, or that every tax dollar they collect is spent wisely, but they're taking the fall for the true culprits: Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, Sen. Steve Ogden and the Republican leadership in Austin. If you're upset about local taxes, direct your ire there.

*There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch — coined by Robert Heinlein, a noted writer of science fiction and Libertarian

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