I am writing to both of you because you are currently considering legislation that will raise taxes.
As a citizen and taxpayer I've hit the wall.
Just stop it.
Increasing the amount of money state and local government takes from my wife and I to fund a new stadium or state roads employee retirement does not occur in a vacuum. Our property taxes have increased 30% since we purchased our home in 1999. Our utility taxes have increased and will continue to increase. The pending sewer upgrades mandated by the Federal Government will result in a staggering 5000% increase in sewer fees. Notice I'm detailing only the some of the local taxes. A comprehensive inventory is just too damn depressing and time consuming. This obviously does not include the realities of the ever increasing cost of living our lives in the same manner we have for the past ten years.
The discussions of a gas tax increase or funding a new stadium are all predicated on taking somebody else's money who worked for it and rerouting it to an actual or perceived state/city services benefit that includes people who haven't worked for it.
The bottom line...it's never enough money. Be it education, state and local union employees compensation, roads, state capital fountains, new CWS baseball stadium, and on and on and on. Mr. Vokal, we can't, as a city, appropriately fund park maintenance that benefits local citizens year round but, by Fahey, we'll find a way to pay for that damned $140M NCAA bribe to keep the two week CWS here for some TBA time. Ms. Howard, a gas tax increase? A gas tax increase? In a state that has the dubious distinction of a national top ten tax burden as well as retail gas prices' steep price increase, somehow the concept of a gas tax increase borders on the absurd for us civilians.
You want a really ground breaking concept that mirrors the decisions that your constituency makes every year? Freeze the budget.
My fetching wife and I don't have a 3% to 5% increase in our funding every year. I'm pretty sure our neighbors don't have that funding written into their life contract. But State and City government will consistently take that much more money from us every year and point to all of the pressures associated with--are you ready--increased costs. I have increased costs of funding your increased costs, I just don't have the power of law to take somebody else's money to offset my increased costs.
Change the dynamic, really make a difference. Freeze the budget for two years. And then challenge every state/city government agency, union and employee to find and implement ways to cut costs and waste, reject cronyism and make better use of the taxpayer's money. Hey I know they would not do this because it's the right thing to do. They would do it because...well...the budget is frozen. I am confident there would be a Greek chorus' worth of weeping and gnashing of teeth about the abject chaos that would result for state society. Then maybe,..just maybe, the folks we entrusted by vote or appointment to manage our substantial and ever growing investment in government will take that time to evaluate how they could be better stewards of that trust. Because.... they hit a wall.