Guess Gretchen Gardner never met Mel Thomson: "Low taxes is the result of Low Spending" - Granite Grok

Guess Gretchen Gardner never met Mel Thomson: “Low taxes is the result of Low Spending”

“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

Pay taxesBuy that park.  Buy that library.  Buy more schools.  Buy light rail (think Boston’s Green line).  Buy EVERYTHING for that foundational Progressive saying “It’s about the quality of life!”.  Sure it is – for there is NO connection between having Government do more and more for your quality of life and the cost of the same.  Congratulations, Gretchen, you just “only a cuppa coffee a day” yourself out of the neighborhood for every spending project possible – how’s that “Java tank truck” of your’s getting for mileage now?  You wanted it, you voted for it – and now you are complaining that you’ve priced yourself out of your own home?   While on my Budget Committee in my hamlet, I fought against new or expanded projects because I KNOW the people that can’t keep up with rising property taxes.  But this one, that did it to herself?  Hoisted on her own petard, logically speaking – no sympathy for this one.

We think of Texas as being this really Conservative state – but just like Portsmouth or the college towns here in NH, Austin is a dot of Liberal Progressive blue in a sea of red.  Liberal?  Check.  High taxes?  Check.  Looking for a scapegoat instead of looking at yourself and said “maybe we shouldn’ta bought all that stuff“?  Check (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Real Values for Texas, a statewide group advocating for property tax reform, local officials and others say they believe enough momentum is building around the state to put pressure on the Legislature to fix what they say is a flawed property tax system. The issue is an especially hot one in Austin, where property values have risen at a much faster rate than wages in recent years, leaving more and more area homeowners saying they are struggling to pay their property tax bills.  At issue is what can be done. Market forces generally dictate home values. And with no state income tax, the state government and local taxing entities rely heavily on property tax for revenue to fund schools and many local services.

“There’s tremendous evidence that the appraisal process is broken,” said Brigid Shea, the Democratic nominee for Precinct 2 Travis County commissioner who organized the meeting at First Unitarian Universalist Church on May 20. “I’ve done grass-roots organizing for 25 years for a variety of issues, and I have never seen an issue where people are as furious — and as frightened — as this one. We have to do everything in our power to fix it. It’s grossly unfair, and it’s hurting our communities. More and more families are being driven out of the city because they can’t afford to live there.”

A key problem, critics say, is that the current system has shifted a disproportionate share of the burden of paying for schools and local services on homeowners, in favor of commercial and corporate interests who can afford to appeal their values and win big reductions year after year. The share of property taxes from homeowners to support public schools grew from 45 percent to 54 percent over a 12-year period, while commercial and industrial owners’ share has declined to less than 20 percent. (Other sectors, from oil and gas to personal property, make up the rest.)

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said he understands the frustration felt by homeowners, and said action by state lawmakers is overdue.

So like all Progressive moonbat thinking, it is NOT because we keep buying more and more infrastructure because it is pretty (a park), sounds great (light rail, in which one constantly tosses dollars between the rails), or enhances their quality of life (in which one demands that other people for stuff you like but they may never use).  It is NOT because staffing payroll and benefits keep rising (labor is generally 60% of taxes).  It IS because of the evil corporations refuse to pay “their fair share”.  Where have we heard this before??

We sure have – The out of State funded Granite State Progress‘s Zandra Rice-Hawkins that keeps kvetching that property taxes are just SO unfair – after all, those rich people don’t pay all the taxes I say they should because they buy smaller houses than what they can afford.  How DARE they not spend our their money on the stuff we want them to they don’t want or need!  It is just so UNFAIR they have more and we can’t just take it from them (Waaaaaaaaa).

Translation: those meanies that won’t pay for all the stuff that we vote in!  They are just so SELFISH!

Actually, it isn’t the companies that are selfish – it IS the folks that keep voting for more and more and expect others to pay for it.

(H/T: Hot Air for the initial news, here‘s the long story)

 

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