Taxes, Budgets, Spending, Are They Linked? | Eastern NC Now

Taxes, Budgets, Spending, Are They Linked?

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

County taxes, budgets and spending are definitely linked. One is dependent on the other. Without a budget there would be no spending. Without spending there would be no taxes. I am amused that taxpayers will become irate and chase the “red herring” of property values. Whatever your property value is does not matter as long as it is valued fairly relative to all other properties in your county.

Spending is what determines how much your property taxes will be. Spending is controlled by the majority of Boards of County Commissioners. That is four commissioners (out of seven) in Beaufort County. The amount of money you pay in tax this year was determined by a four to three vote. The Gang of Four, Fake Frankie Waters, Re-label Randy Walker, Jerry Langley and Ed Booth have determined how much money you will pay in taxes during at least the past four years. Most of this money comes from property and sales taxes with the remainder from fees and monies paid by the Federal and State Governments. All of this money is paid by you.

The Gang of Four is composed of two Republicans and two Democrats. Both parties support these people and this corruption of our political system. Beaufort County votes more than 60 percent MAGA Republican.

Budgets are the tool that determines property tax rates and decides what the Gang of Four want to buy. Because most county commissioners don’t know much about keepin or balancing books or counting money or finance or disclosing facts to the public, the Legislature has set up laws, mostly of disclosure. North Carolina State Law requires government budgets to be balanced with at least one public hearing before the annual budget is passed. In order to keep the politicians honest, State Law requires the budget to be enacted as an ordinance. An ordinance is a law. This is to keep politicians from raising money to do one thing and then use it for something else.

The budget is assembled by the County Manager under the direction of the majority of the Board of County Commissioners. Commissioners like to pretend they do not have much say about the budget and therefore the tax rate. This is not true. This budget contains all of the requests of the Gang of Four.  That is about a million dollars to their favorite charities, about $900,000 in salary increases and numerous other increases that are buried in the budget that Commissioners do not know about or want to know about.

Commissioners determine how much detail is included in the proposed budget documents. During the past ten years the budget document presented to the commissioners has become more general. This year’s budget document broke all records for simplicity and lack of detail. This is what continuation budgets do.

Continuation budgets are easy to do. One takes last year’s budget, adds something for inflation and new programs and benefits. Notice the word “add”. There is no analysis as to what we need or can do without, so the word subtract does not come into play. An example is there are three less school buildings to maintain during the coming year. The school budget was not adjusted downward, instead it was raised.

It is a simple truth that if no money is spent no taxes need to be raised. That person who is concerned about his tax valuation and therefore how much money he is going to have to pay in taxes should be greatly concerned about how much money the Gang of Four is spending.

The final budget document raised spending about 4.8 million dollars but did not raise taxes. The Gang of Four secretly raised property taxes 7.48 percent or 2.75 million dollars last year and are increasing spending 4.8 million this year. Not a word has been heard from those people who were so concerned about property values. I will say it again, “Spending money causes taxes”.

The pacification statement to the public was: “We are spending more money, but we are not raising taxes”. Where is this money coming from? It is coming from inflationary increases in sales taxes, new building and construction and the 2.75 million they raised last year. This system of irresponsible management works fine as long as the economy holds up, and we continue to have inflation. When the economy stalls or turns down or we have stagflation, or tax collections decline, the taxpayer has to start paying to fund those “free” increases in spending. Those who are so concerned about property values will become more concerned about spending and what can be cut from the budget when times get hard.

The economy is constantly changing, going up and down. Our national government has preached the religion of 2 percent inflation since President Nixon took us off the gold standard. Going off the gold standard demonetized money. Because the dollar is not tied to anything (gold) there is no limit to the amount of dollars that can be created. The printing press is at the root of our current inflation. Printing press money becomes less valuable the more that is printed. This situation never ends well. Inflation is the best thing any irresponsible government ever had. Our Federal Government is a prime example. We are having trouble collecting enough taxes to pay the interest on our debt. But the presses keep running.

This is why continuing to irresponsibly increase spending makes Beaufort County a contributor to the ultimate default of the dollar. Our citizens are best protected by limiting spending and keeping a low property tax rate. That way, Beaufort County property owners will be able to keep their property without losing it to the tax collector during hard times.

Because of budget irresponsibility, voters will have an opportunity to amend the State Constitution during the November elections to allow the Legislature to control property tax rates. I predict it will easily pass.