A group called the Watauga County Citizens Opposed to the 2010 Sales Tax Increase Referendum Committee has put out a document called the Watauga County Commissioner’s Sales Tax Fact Sheet (Propaganda) Exposed. The paper is loaded with revelatory facts. However, it is too long for me to reproduce verbatim in a blog. Therefore, I decided to outline a number of their issues and then apologize to them for doing violence to an excellently researched work.
Outlined quotes from the document:
The Watauga County Boards of Commissioners have scheduled a local referendum seeking voter approval for an additional 1/4 cents sales tax because they are required to do it, not because they want to.
The County Commissioners have included information about the Parks and Recreation Master Plan on their fact sheet. This was done in hopes of leading us to believe that the sales tax increase and the recreational funding are one and the same. Nowhere on this ballot does it state anything about the Recreational Master Plan or how the funds are to be used. It is a simple up and down vote on the tax increase.
The County Commissioners claim the additional funding will be used for recreation and then they go on to aggrandize the recreational center and community center. However, the Commissioners don’t tell us how much these projects are going to cost. The operative words the Commissioners employ are “used for.” That does not mean that the sales tax increase will “pay for.” The County Commissioners are not even required to “use” the funds for recreation.
How can the County Commissioners claim that they are going to build a recreational center and/or a community center until they know how much it is going to cost and whether the Local Government Commission is even going to approve the loan?
Note that the County Commissioners did not resolve to hold a referendum on the loans that these facilities will require as part of their resolution. However, because of the tax resolution and other County propaganda claiming a connection between the sales tax referendum and recreational funding, the County Commissioners will use a vote for this referendum as your blessing when they come before the Local Government Commission asking for approval for the loans for these facilities. (Emphasis added by Blogger)
There is much more in this paper and I hope it will be published in full in one of the local papers.
11 comments:
Where can one get a copy of this fact sheet in it's entity?
Plentiful recreation facilities is a worthy goal. Living within our means is an even more worthy one. Maybe these facilities should be created with private funding.
Thank you for a very important thread.
Guy. Where can one get a copy of this fact sheet in it's entity?
I am sorry, I don't know. It was handed out at the Republican monthly meeting by Deborah Greene. Every thing she writes is powerful and she has been asked by the editors of the paper to submit articles. Perhaps they will run it or maybe they already have.
When your visa is maxed its maxed.Thy can not get that?
Blogger: Please clear this up as your citation of this group's claims are a bit unclear.....
Are you saying that this "group" claims that the Board believes and have stated that they HAVE TO call for a public referendum? Or are you saying that the "group" is saying that the Board has called the vote because they HAVE TO, and not because they WANT TO?
Basically, is the group claiming that the board is lying by stating in some unspecified forum that they HAVE TO call for a public vote?
It is my understanding that the referendum is a legal requirement in order to establish this tax increase. If it had not been the present commissioners would have already passed it.
I read on another blog an interesting theory. This theory is that the present Democrat commissioners want to spend so much on non essential things such as recreation complexes that taxes will have to be raised by the next group of commissioners (who will probably have a Republican majority)in order to cover the things that are necessary to operate the county. This would help them in the following election. If they have indeed written off their chances in this election, this is a typical political move to hurt the public in order to regain power for the party.
This is indeed their ploy Guy.
They will commit the county to extravagant expenditures that the next commissioners will have to pay for. It'll place the burden of either raising taxes or drastically cutting spending to pay for them.
Typical dem ploy which is also being used nationally.
Who ever controls Congress for the next 2 years is going to get all the blame for the huge fall the economy is going to take.
So since the repubs are too gutless to do anything, let the dems keep their offices, and the accountability for ruining the economy will be on their heads.
By then, maybe the Conservatives will have a chance to sweep out the trash, both republican and democrat.
Funny, Wolf. Your take describes the exact route the national Republicans travelled, increasing spending and squandering a healthy budget surplus along the way, from the start of 2001 through the time their House majority was overturned in early 2006. But, comically, when any non-fundamentalist extremist points out such folly on this blog, the groupthink rabble zombily shout them down for blaming everything on W.
Just love that whole "do as we say, not as we do" thing. It rings as entertainingly sincere as a televangelist's rant against adultery.
Be HEEEEEEEEEEEaled.
That second date should read "early 2007."
Anonymous You must not have been reading this blog long. I have said consistently that Bush should have left Iraq when he appeared beneath the sign Mission Accomplished. Because he did not, he got an expensive war. Then to fund his war, he had to bribe every member of congress. With the candy store unlocked, everyone became like Democrats. This is when they use the national treasury to maintain power through payoffs to people back home.
When Obama asks if we want to stay with him or go back to the policies that got us into this mess, the answer is a resounding yes! Go back! However, the go back is to the time when Gingrich and his new young Republicans helped Clinton get that big surplus. It also means go back to when Reagan cut taxes and spending. We don’t go back to the Bush second term which was an aberration and was helped along when the Democrats gained power and exacerbated the mess.
Blogger,
I agree completely with your assessment of Bush and the Iraq war.
Victory is expensive.
Happy to have been forwarded a copy of the fact sheet, Blogger. The facts should be posted on the electronic billboards.
Post a Comment