Commentary on Beaufort County's Ad Valorem Increase | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This commentary originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer, and is the companion piece to "Special interests 5, taxpayers 2."

    You would have to be incredibly creative to imagine a more absurd exhibition of what is wrong with government in this country than what was the reality exhibited by the Beaufort County Commissioners last night (6-20-11). More precisely... by five of the seven commissioners.

    The infamous 'bottom line' is that the five--Langley, McRoy, Klemm, Booth and Cayton--voted to raise taxes, not because they had to, but in order to protect their individual favored special interest. They did so by horsetrading among those favored interests and then used the schools to make up the difference, while at the same time ignoring $3.5 million in revenue that is not even shown in the budget.

    And to top all that off, they deliberately refused to provide oversight in how that $3.5 million is ultimately used.

    The Gang of Five did all this after hearing from a record number of taxpayers who told the board not to raise taxes again for the second year in a row in the midst of the worst recession most of the people have ever experienced.

    Moreover, they tried to blame the people by punishing them with a tax rate increase because a majority of voters voted for the school bond issue years ago. (And by the way, that is a bogus statement. There was no tax increase on the ballot we voted on. And the school superintendent at the time publically said that the bonds would not require a tax increase. And he was correct, as we have documented here.)

    So we end up with a tax increase while special interests are protected and millions that could have been used go not only unbudgeted, but without any fiscal oversight by the Commissioners.

    Amazing. Simply amazing.

    We would commend those who attended and especially those who spoke.

    We find no fault in those who have a favored special interest advocating for that group. And we think the "no new taxes" speakers were masterful in articulating why now is not the time to raise taxes.

    We even commend those who spoke in favor of full funding for the EDC. Our problem with that issue is that, as we have published here, the EDC's record is replete with bogus data and shows little return on the more than six million the tax payers have spent on "jobs" in the last few years. Even if Quick Start II is sold today, we are still upside down in the EDC's projects. In fact, the net result of the EDC's decisions has been a loss to the taxpayers.

    However, what we find astounding is the Commissioners' ignoring the problem of an ineffective economic development program. The opportunity costs far exceed the actual expenditures. The current structure of that activity has made some very bad business decisions based more on "hopes" than on reality. The supporters are absolutely correct in championing more and better jobs as a critical need in Beaufort County. But what that aspiration does not recognize is that the approach that has been used has not produced jobs commensurate with even a minimal return on investment. Yet the majority of the Board of Commissioners chose to continue business as usual.

    As for the other recipients of the majority's largesse we are incredulous that these five politicians believe it is their right to confiscate money from one group and give it to another for non-governmental functions. In that sense, we find such corruption to be as bad as the mess we see in the federal and state governments.

    We had hoped that in seeing the mess in Washington, DC and Raleigh in recent years that our local leadership would not succumb to the temptation to transfer the wealth from producers to moochers (those who rely on taking money from one group (taxpayers) to support their favored cause) and looters (those who take other people's money for their own benefit).

    While calling some of these advocates for really worthy causes "moochers" we realize that will offend. But the simple truth is that it is neither government's role to fund all "worthy causes" because they are worthy nor can many people, who are struggling just to make ends meet, afford to have these five commissioners giving their money away. And to the extent that Hood Richardson is correct, it is an abomination for these five people to give away people's money in order to curry favor from special interests, no matter how worthy the cause.

    And while we're speaking about worthy causes, we will offer a generalized criticism of most of the advocates for these causes: Few justified their asking for donations of the People's money by offering solid data and information about the results the favored groups achieve. and exeption to that was the Arts Council.

    But to the Arts Council advocates, we would challenge them to substantiate that "for every dollar given the Arts Council, sixteen dollars are returned." We don't believe that. We would welcome a debate on the validity of such claims but we are not willing to accept such claims simply because another advocate group made them. If there truly is that kind of return on investment for arts spending, then there would be a ton of private entrepreneurs who would be willing to support such spending. That the moochers have to ask for taxpayer support means that in fact the beneficiaries do not adequately support the cause. So why should the taxpayer?

    But we do commend them for at least acknowledging that results should be weighed against what could be done with the donated money otherwise. If the five 'Tax and Spenders' had fulfilled their duty they would have not donated any money to any group without valid, concrete evidence of what results are expected and achieved.

    We are in serious trouble in this nation and state. Government is spending way more than the taxpayers can afford for it to spend. Now we have the same fiscal irresponsibility at the local level with the majority on the Board of Commissioners. In good economic times government largesse is a debatable issue. However, no matter how worthy the cause, the truth is that we can't afford this kind of spending. When so many people are hurting economically it is totally irresponsible for these commissioners to use governmental power to redistribute wealth, even to worthy causes. What is clear to us now is that facts and solid information are not what matters to these five. In the face of a compelling reality of the need to change the way county government does business, they have chosen to continue business as usual while more people are truly suffering than has ever been the case in our life times. Since they have demonstrated that they are incapable or unwilling to change, we are going to have to change them.