Last night was the Public Hearing for both the Town and the School District; about 100 people showed up with the majority of them being employees of both + elected officials from both. Thus, other than a few self-interested members of the public, most were self-interested from a special interest group perspective. Pretty much everything went whizzing through with the only real questions of the night pertained to the Acres Water District where one guy wanted to understand why the budget was way up from last year. The representative from the Water District went over the large budget increases and that was that.
Last night was also the last official act of my BudComm career – three terms of three years each with the first two contiguous, a lapse of a few years, and then this term. Thus, I knew, with a lack of any controversial encountered during the actual budget process, that the meeting would be rather short. Short it was, but longer than I thought due to a warrant article from the School Board, a petition warrant from the Chair of the School Board (but acting as a citizen), and then the usual yearly plea from me about the begging via petition warrants from CINOs – Charities in Name Only.
I’m so tired of these CINOs making their pleas at the Town level in trying to persuade a few elected officials to send property tax monies their way. Unless prodded, they never admit that they also double, triple, or quadruple dip as well. Not only do they rent-seek from the town with “look how many people we helped in your town for FREE!” in trying to whip up sympathy votes. Sure, they do good work and sometimes necessary work, but when they actually used to come into the BudComm, they sounded entitled about getting the money they though was “due them”.
Sidenote: yes, some did. In fact, to repeat it once again, one woman tried the ploy of “but we’re just part of Government just like you (meaning the BudComm)”. She quickly left the room when I SEVERELY challenged that assumption and added “so, you’re going to open up your books to us and let WE, the BudComm, make your budget priorities for you? After all, if you’re part of our Town Government, that’s what we do”.
I couldn’t understand the angry face and the quick exit out the door after that remark (/sarcasm).
I’ve never understood the “magic money maker” approach either: “for every $1 we get, we can turn that into $5, $10, or even more!”. Translation is that by the Town showing some financial support, they can leverage that at the County, State, and Federal levels to get even more. But it all so sounds so fine: $1 makes $10. Easy-peasy. YOU, the taxpayer, will end up paying us 4 times over.
But the worst is the immorality of it. Is funding “charities” (now just call them government teat-suckers because without government money, they’d be out of business) by property taxes the correct thing to do? Those monies are to run the town and school – not charities. Charities USED to be funded by actual charitable donations, elicited from Individuals out of the goodness of their hearts and own wallets. Businesses too, give voluntarily.
But property taxes? Sorry, taxes are not charity. If you think so, try not paying them for a while. Not only that, but here’s the immoral part:
What is so moral about forcing your neighbor to support a “charity” by upping their property taxes simply because you believe a charity is worthwhile? Even more, how is it moral when your neighbor hates that charity for some reason yet you are forcing them to do so by a majority vote.
Funding Government is one thing; funding charities is another.It isn’t moral at all – yet it has been going on for years simply because these CINOs see it as easy money for the little effort put in to actually get it.
ALL of the Progressives, in the end, voted for both CINO petition warrant articles (some were voted on last week when I was absent). It was simply a Collective mindset reaction – since they determined it was “goodness”, ALL must participate. There cannot be allowed anyone to NOT participate. There cannot be anyone allowed to financially dissent.
I had a back and forth with Dorothy Piquado, a very Progressive woman, who vehemently said I was wrong, that people needed to be helped. My entreaties to voluntary support went nowhere. The undertone was “how DARE you not support what I support”.
What I failed to do was to put in a petition warrant about supporting the NRA’s Eddy Eagle education program for kids in schools for REAL gun safety. I betcha if I had, my argument would have been used against me.
And I would have won.