April 04, 2004

Tax Hike in Metro's Future?

There's an op/ed piece in today's Tennessean by Gail Keller pondering if Mayor Purcell is going to attempt to raise taxes in his second term.

As I mentioned last week, all the talks about cuts in the Metro budget are designed to provide the maximum media exposure to scare people which would eventually lead to higher taxes.

The Tennessean article speaks to part of this:

When Nashville mayors get a second term, they generally do it again. The signs that Mayor Bill Purcell will try to raise taxes in 2005 — and that he knows he is in for the fight of his life — are as evident as the tulips popping up their little pink heads.

Among those signs: dire revenue predictions followed by agonizing lists of what might be cut in schools and services, a brand-new $130,000 study on whether the city needs a new $400 million convention center (gee … wonder what the study will say), vacant thermal land where (connect the dots) a convention center could go, and a host of good-guy city initiatives.

Almost every Metro mayor has gone for a property tax hike in the second year of his term. Almost all tax hikes have eventually passed in some form. But the world is now a deeply anti-tax place. To make a good case, the mayor has to really show a problem and explain how that coincides with everything being great before his re-election last fall.

If you'll remember, back in 2001, when Purcell requested an 88-cent increase in property taxes, he stated:

''If approved, this is the only property tax increase I will request during this term.''

Guess what? It's his second term.

I also heard Purcell in a speech last year say that if the state shared taxes weren't cut, then there would be no reason to raise taxes, and what happened? The state shared taxes were cut.

Something else of note...virtually no council candidate who signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge during the last election won in their respective race. Most incumbents steered clear of the pledge. Did they know that this was on the horizon?

The fact is, that I heard rumors back in August (shortly after the election) that there were already talks of a tax increase of some type on the horizon. I had heard that it could possibly come about late in the year, but that proved to be untrue. Of course, there weren't any budget "crises" at that time either. The current media coverage of the budget cuts should provide the mayor with plenty of ammo to start floating the idea of yet another tax increase.

Gail Keller mentions one crucial thing in her article......"the world is now a deeply anti-tax place." Yes, it is.

Saddle up, boys. It's time for another tax fight.

Comments:

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Our property taxes would be lower if churches, especially the really big ones, paid their fair share for police and fire protection and streets.

Posted by: The Token Librul at April 4, 2004 10:36 PM

TTL. You are right. How dare the government live on a real budget like you and me.
It sure is the churches fault. How dare they not give to all the failed social programs and badly thought out democratic pork barrel projects. We need to build bigger taller buildings to finance the unions and get union votes and donations.
Ok. All democrats chant mindlessly after me
"Tax! Tax! Spend! Spend!
Tax! Tax! Spend! Spend!
Tax! Tax! Spend! Spend!
Tax! Tax! Spend! Spend!
Bush lied, Bush lied!"..Oops!. Wrong mindless chant..

Posted by: gunner at April 4, 2004 11:46 PM

At least the gunner is right about one thing: Bush lied and 613 soldiers died...for what? Imagine if all those resources had gone into hunting Osama, the guy who attacked us, instead of Saddam, the guy who didn't attack us.

Posted by: The Token Librul at April 5, 2004 10:19 PM

Oh, and if I have to pay for police and fire protection, so should churches. They're not entitled to a free ride, are they?

Posted by: The Token Librul at April 5, 2004 10:20 PM