Thinking About Taxes!!!!!????? | Eastern North Carolina Now

 

 

By:  Hood Richardson

In its simplest form, taxing theory makes a lot of sense.  In practice taxes are not fair, cater to special interests and provides far more services and benefits than are required by the taxing theory.

The (primitive) theory is that we need protection from our enemies and thieves.  As populations increased, trading and banking required more attention.  As populations increased more the spread of disease became a problem.  With more population it became apparent that individuals and even corporations could not provide effective and efficient transportation and education systems.  Governments have the ability to raise and waste large amounts of money at gunpoint.  Companies and Corporations do not.

Society has developed many innovative ways to pay for the things we want governments to provide us with.  Transportation taxes are a good example. Users pay tax on fuel. Sales taxes are a way of making sure everyone pays some taxes.  The work horses of the tax system is property and income taxes.  Counties are run on property and sales taxes.  State and federal governments collect income taxes, among others.

Collectively, many people paying small amounts of money generate huge amounts of funds.  The various populations elect their representatives to manage and provide public services.  These elected people have a fiduciary responsibility to the public.  Fiduciary means, those who are elected are supposed to spend and manage the tax money for the benefit of the public.  The constitution says “general welfare.”  In their fiduciary capacity, elected officials are not supposed to benefit personally from tax moneys.  Theory says tax money is to benefit the safety, health and welfare of the public.  The public is all of us, not special interests or special groups, like for example “right handed people”.

With the above information in mind, we will discuss how well this system works in Beaufort County. 

Until about 6 years ago Beaufort County Commissioners performed their fiduciary duties in an open forum with an open board, with each commissioner having access to  government operations and the  free flow of information without question.  Beginning with the elections of Frankie Waters, Ron Buzzeo,  and Gary Brinn the operations of the board changed to one in which the  privilege of membership within a Board clique provided exclusive insider information. With Republicans Brinn and Buzzeo leaving the board, there was an alliance formed with the Democrats (Langley and Booth) to have a majority.  Clique members now are Jerry Langley, Ed Booth, Frankie Waters and John Rebholz.  Randy Walker has abandoned the conservatives who elected him and now votes with them on most issues.

There are cliques in all organizations and there always will be.  Cliques are acceptable providing they do not do damage the purpose of the organization. This clique has done damage to the premise that elected officials are there to protect the public interest in the spending of their tax money.  Our board meetings have evolved into timed performances in which your elected officials come to approve what is presented to them and not to discuss and debate policy.  If you watch meetings, you will see that there is very little debate other than to put down anything said by those who are not members of the clique. 

The statement was made during the early days of the clique that commissioners would come to vote and not to debate issues.  Because of the back room decisions and the setting of policy away from the public, Beaufort County has accumulated a lot of bad decisions and failed to oversee departments and the use of your tax money. 

Before the clique, we voted on the purchase of every vehicle separately.  Now items like these, along with the numerous trailers are buried in the budget.  Take a look at all of the new vehicles in County parking lots.  This can be done by visiting County parking lots on weekends. 

Somehow, the budget has been manipulated so county employees will get an approximate 8 percent salary increase without a tax increase or an increase in the total budget.  I believe we are not buying things this year that will suddenly appear in the budget next year.  This happened only because the clique gave their approval out of sight of the public, before the budget was  put together.  This will be presented to us as a vote for or against it.  They already have the votes lined up to pass it.

Beaufort County is collecting large amounts of excess cash.  Those of us who are outside the clique have tried to use these surpluses to reduce taxes.  With no debate, on the recommendation of staff, 5.6 million dollars was removed from the savings account and placed in a special project fund.  There was no advance warning.  The issue suddenly came up at a meeting early this year.  When the question of what this money would be used for, there was no answer.  The request to give a tax reduction this year was voted down very quickly.  Handling this money this way makes it appear as though there is no opportunity to reduce taxes.  It is off budget spending.  It makes it look like spending has not increased.

There is no debate on the school board budget.  We simply dump the money and run.  Any Beaufort County Commissioner who tells you that he understands how that 15 million is spent is not telling the truth.  The belief among the gang of four (Commissioners, Waters, Rebholz, Langley and Booth) is that all department heads know what to buy with their money and all we should approve is the spending.  This is a particularly bad situation with two County Commissioners’ wives on the School Board.  How much pillow talk is there on our school budget?  What about our fiduciary responsibility?  What about that half million dollars for a woke canned math curriculum that was not needed.

Regarding the accused theft of money by the employee of the Town of Chocowinity and County monies that may have been involved, the Board and the Manager took the position that after the money was given to anyone, we have no responsibility or authority to control its use.  How does that make you feel about paying taxes?

Watch the budget hearings.  You will see that without the comments of myself and Commissioner Deatherage, there is no questioning about the public use of money or Beaufort County policy in protecting the public.  It seems like it is all free money, there is so much of it, why care?  There are serious faults in the way Beaufort County Government is run.

We are entering a new elections year with the sign up to run in the  2024 elections being during December of 2023, only 6 months away.  We desperately need a conservative school board and to break up the clique on the Board of Commissioners.  To have a primary that could eliminate two RINO’s we need six candidates for commissioner. The school board election is simpler because they run in districts.  We need five candidates, one for each district.

If you want to change the way government is run, you need to change the people who are running government.

Good government theory holds that county government should collect and spend taxes on the “general welfare.”  That is, all of the people having equal access to the benefits of the taxes.  We need a Board of Commissioners who will follow this principle and not use general taxes to benefit only a select group.

 

 

 


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Comments

( May 28th, 2023 @ 12:30 pm )
 
CT: Perfect point made and is inescapably true on all levels.
( May 28th, 2023 @ 11:26 am )
 
Beaufort County's taxes are too high due to the RINO / Democrat big spending coalition running our county government. That needs to change. Why can't the Republicans work together as they do in Raleigh and in Washington, DC? A coalition with leftwing Democrats is a huge embarassment when voters elected a 5 to 2 Republican majority.
( May 28th, 2023 @ 9:45 am )
 
Thank-you Hood for your honest perspective on your conceived history of how what occurs on the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners affects us all, far more than many realize.

Until there is a majority of Conservatives moving as a thoughtful and motivated group of fiscal advocates, Beaufort County will continue to slide further into a middling mess of directionless accountability of the People's government, ultimately enabled by the People's hard earned confiscated wealth as this flaccid CURRENT majority's effective tool to ply their directionless path of rudderless and sophistic ideals.
Donna said:
( May 28th, 2023 @ 9:21 am )
 
I agree there needs to be more transparency for public to see prior to making it a rule or a law!! This country is supposed to be governed by the people, the citizens, this has been misplaced slowly but needs to be put back up front where it belongs!!



BCS needs a Long Range Facilities Plan before it builds any more schools Hood: I'd Rather Be Right, Editorials, Beaufort Observer, Op-Ed & Politics The Thirst For Truth – Big Picture Explanation of what happened in the past 15 years that flipped the social, cultural, media, leftist and Govt Rela

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