Time for a change? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article was initially published by our friends at the Beaufort Observer.

    Despite the protestations of a wide ranging sample of Beaufort County citizens, "The Gang of Five" just increased your property taxes 6%. Now 6% doesn't sound like a lot until you do the math. On a $200,000 property, this amounts to an additional $120.00 a year in taxes. On a small business worth $400,000 in property you will be paying an additional $240.00 a year and these increases follow on the heels of a supposedly revenue neutral (ha ha) revaluation. If this wasn't bad enough, the long term consequences of this increase are worse. This tax increase will hit us each and every year as long as the "Gang of Five" refuses to lower the tax rate.

    Expect that your mortgage payment (escrow) and rent payments will increase because everybody pays property taxes. Think about it! Expect prices for goods and services to increase because businesses have to pay property taxes. Expect to have less disposable income to spend on such frills as food, gasoline, medicine and clothing. These increased taxes will suck an additional 2 million dollars out of the local economy. While some of that 2 million will be fed back into the economy, it will nonetheless be taken away from many businesses that could have invested it more productively than will the government likely invest it.

    So good luck to all you business owners. Expect to see some more jobs and businesses vanish as belt tightening happens yet again. In NC, the private sector job market has shrunk by 4.9% while public sector jobs have grown by 7.1%. You don't have to be an accountant to figure out that this cannot be sustained. You cannot continually punish the wealth creating private sector to feed the wealth eating public sector without consequences.

    Expect the EDC to come back to the commissioners at some point with a request for more "stimulus money." The EDC will need it to bribe CEO's to locate here in the face of rising costs and taxes. According to Lawrence Lindsey, who was one of Reagan's White House aides, it costs the government (taxpayers) $266,000.00 to create one job. Shouldn't we tell the government to leave private enterprise alone and let them create the jobs for a lot less?

    While the rest of us have had to adjust our standard of living (downward), the public sector and special interest groups are holding their own or expanding. Increased taxes have consequences. As Michael Savage is fond of saying, we are experiencing "Trickle up Poverty". Make no mistake about it, the government in all it's forms will attempt to save itself first. This is the reason that the Federal Reserve (it's broke) has created 2 trillion dollars out of thin air. They need to keep their promises to keep the pitch forks away. The consequences on the dollar are staggering.

    The distressing part of all this is that two Republicans (McRoy and Klemm) voted for this tax increase while Republicans nationwide, statewide and in most local areas surrounding us are cutting spending and reducing or holding the line on taxation. I guess that's what happens when you pile up 41 million dollars in debt and then have to repay the principal and interest (18 million dollars).

    After attending several budget workshops and the final budget hearing on June 20th, I have concluded that the special interests and the public sector hold sway in the board room and the taxpayer is an afterthought. Is it time for a change?

    A case in point is public funding of the arts. I have some experience in that regard having founded a Center for the Performing Arts in Luray, Virginia without government assistance. I rejected all government assistance fearing regime change. The center was established through a private endowment, donations and the assistance of BB&T Bank. It took five years of hard work but it was accomplished free of political involvement of any kind.

    We often look to the government as the solution to all our problems (especially financial) but what often happens is that the government becomes the problem. Remember the road to socialism ends up in a pile of SKULLS.