GraniteGrok Debate. Counterpoint…Favoring a tax cap.

I attended both forums on the Dover Tax Cap initiative. In the first one moderated by Councilor David Scott, he laid out the ground rules and how it was an information gathering event for citizens paneled by: himself, three Dover city employees and four guests from Franklin and Laconia (including two mayors), who had experience of a tax cap in their communities. It was therefore balanced with those from the private sector who pay taxes to government and those from municipal government who increase their ranks and compensation through tax hikes and whose earnings are the result of taxes. Two of the first people to break the ground rules and start the ball rolling toward mild anarchy were the tax and spend liberals Betsey Andrews Parker and Mr. Glenn Grasso himself, who felt that they should grandstand rather than ask questions. And no cap opponents asked a question of the Dover staff. The audience was packed with Dover city union employees, some of whom also threw their rhetorical weight around with great melodrama, and warnings of doom, generating far more heat than light.

.

The second, calmer forum, run by unlimited spending advocate Mayor Scott Myers had six panelists all from state agencies and local government; people whose compensation increases and whose jobs are more secure when taxes go up not down. This is objectivity he says, not stacking the deck to achieve a desired outcome. There were no private sector representatives and no one who’d personally experienced first-hand a tax cap…how helpful.  He then coached the panelists how to respond when he felt the need.

.

On the same day that Foster’s ran its editorial against the tax cap, the Union Leader editorialized in favor of it. On Thursday, Foster’s editor publishes an unhinged, "infuriated" diatribe playing the class warfare demagogue’s card, then denying it in the next paragraph…truly embarrassing.  As if renters don’t pay increased rent when landlords’ property taxes go up. Foster’s editor must really believe all its readers are dupes.

.

It really comes down to this: those who favor increasing the size and scope of local government regardless of the people’s ability to pay oppose the tax cap; and those who believe government should be limited, and grow within the means of the people, will vote "Yes" on Question 2. 

.

If recent Dover councils and managers had been prudent and reasonable with spending, then there would be no ballot initiative, but we know emphatically this has not been the case. Councils led by Wil Boc and Scott Myers have spent with abandon and have piled on city debt. Dover’s bonded debt load is more than twice what other cities it’s size in NH have, not to mention the interest we pay on it. Has extravagant taxing and spending been put to good use repairing cracked Dover streets? Take a drive.

.

Councilors Dede, Trefethen and Ciotti, led by Myers have repeatedly thwarted reasonable attempts to curb spending and increase transparency in city hall, and have approved "severance packages" for people who’ve gamed the system out of over $500,000 upon departure, as there was no accountability over the city’s top managers for over a decade on their use of sick and vacation time. Talk about “greedy” Mr. editor.

.

No city budget in NH has ever been cut under a tax cap as inflation doesn’t go to zero and there’s always new construction which also counts in the formula. Nashua just strengthened their cap in 2005. Manchester is considering one.

.

A mild approach, this cap is by no means a panacea, and only one additional council vote can override it for urgent reasons. Unfortunately it’s become necessary, as a safety mechanism for when people like Scott Myers and his ilk cannot be trusted to do in office what they promise while campaigning. This cap will hasten a more deliberative approach to budgeting, where the administration has to set real priorities based on city needs, not the carefree desires of a few. And most importantly, the city government will finally have to be accountable to the taxpaying public who pay the bills out of what’s left over after DC and Concord get their cut.

.

William Asbell