I don’t think the tax rate should be used to combat inflation. If inflation is a problem, then the city needs to cut back on services and spending for some period of time. The house is worth what it is worth to the market. You can’t just increase rates anytime you feel the same strains that your constituents are. The community should rise and fall together. You can’t have the community failing and the city staying the same as it always had been.
Who knew you were a Republican? Wanting to cut government spending and keep taxes low for the public good.
Tell that to the unions that have collective bargaining and want their money you are legally obligated to pay. You know, the people you’ve been taking money from who voted for you and know about that intern that leaves your house at 6am when your wife is out of town. Don’t have the money this year to pay for the over time you normally do? running a little short on general discretionary funds? Well, if we aren’t getting paid what we expect and the price of everything is going up and we don’t get performance bonuses raises like the private sector, we strike for even more money than the over time you can’t pay. How’s them apples? Who’s gonna pick up your garbage and teach your kids now? You want to answer that mail a month before an election?
Tell that to the grass that needs to get cut.
Tell that to the homeless living in hotels at $65 a day paid by the city so you don’t see them and the city doesn’t get sued (again) by activists.
Tell that to the grandma who calls you when it’s 100 degrees out who can’t afford the A/C and used to get a city subsidy. I hope you’ve got a good answer, she’s gonna call you with her absentee ballot in her hand and tell her church group exactly what you say.
Government spending, especially in red states, is at the bone. There’s nothing left to cut. And there shouldn’t be if you are running good government. Core critical care services will be cut and most of those effected will be Democratic voters.
But nobody gets re-elected raising taxes, especially Republicans who can get primaried.
So the tax rate doesn’t actually go up at the rate of inflation, though it should, and what happens is we borrow money in the form of bonds at bad rates to avoid raising taxes and cut services but the city appears to be humming right along and people get re-elected.
The problem is the third wave of leadership is saddled a decade later with junk debt, cops who can’t fight crime, roads that will take a decade of catch up to repair, marginal public health services, I could go on and on.
And there’s no easy way out. You cut government spending and the local economy tanks. There’s parts of this country where local and state government provides 40% or more of the wage base. Cut their wages or lay them off and city’s and counties have to borrow to keep the lights on because sales tax revenue plunges.
Some of us have seen this movie before. What’s going on is a disaster for this country and if it’s not handled quickly and with a high degree of competence, nobody over 60 will live long enough to see the end of its effects.
Unfortunately, we appear to be fiddling around when every single American is being victimized by disastrous money policy and unworkable energy policies that are intentionally inflationary but play well with affluent suburban voters who have never really worried about balancing their check book and don’t even begin to care if the US government does the same.
