I'm from Pickens County. I say the same things to citizens here. It is time to get government out of our lives to the greatest extent possible. Think about it. Right now some people are trying to decide who's going to foreclose on their house: the bank or the government. I'd probably take the bank because at least they don't have guns to force me out of the house and a good lawyer has a chance of holding them off.
Sounds to me like it is time for the citizens of Oconee County to throw a tax revolt. It is time for you to LIMIT government to its proper role: protecting your rights, keeping you safe and doing only that which you can NOT do for yourself. It is NOT the responsibility of government to build “specULATIVE” buildings with your tax dollars. That means the government is gambling with YOUR money. If it has money to spend like that demand that they give it back to you! If a business needs government assistance to move to Oconee then it is probably not a sound business to start with. For every shining example the government gives you to prove that spending government money to “attract” businesses works, you can probably find several where it failed or caused more problems that the government had to use YOUR money to fix. Now is the time to LIMIT the size of government, demand budget restraint and fully fund reserves. Now would be a good time to work to eliminate property taxes as well. Ask yourself, “If I’ve paid off the mortgage on my house do I own it?” If you answer yes, you flunk! The government owns first rights to your house as long as there is a property tax. If you say, “But Duke Energy and other businesses pay most of the property taxes in Oconee County.” You FLUNKED again. Businesses do not and cannot pay taxes. They pass those costs onto consumers so YOU are paying them. Get those county finances sorted out and on a sound footing. Pay off debts early. Fully fund the reserves. And the REDUCE or ELIMINATE taxes. Businesses will flock to Oconee County if they don’t have to pay property taxes. All those rich business owners will buy up those lake front properties. And guess what: everyone will spend all that money they aren’t paying in property taxes in higher wages and at local businesses. Less government is better government.
Sounds to me like it is time for the citizens of Oconee County to throw a tax revolt. It is time for you to LIMIT government to its proper role: protecting your rights, keeping you safe and doing only that which you can NOT do for yourself. It is NOT the responsibility of government to build “specULATIVE” buildings with your tax dollars. That means the government is gambling with YOUR money. If it has money to spend like that demand that they give it back to you! If a business needs government assistance to move to Oconee then it is probably not a sound business to start with. For every shining example the government gives you to prove that spending government money to “attract” businesses works, you can probably find several where it failed or caused more problems that the government had to use YOUR money to fix. Now is the time to LIMIT the size of government, demand budget restraint and fully fund reserves. Now would be a good time to work to eliminate property taxes as well. Ask yourself, “If I’ve paid off the mortgage on my house do I own it?” If you answer yes, you flunk! The government owns first rights to your house as long as there is a property tax. If you say, “But Duke Energy and other businesses pay most of the property taxes in Oconee County.” You FLUNKED again. Businesses do not and cannot pay taxes. They pass those costs onto consumers so YOU are paying them. Get those county finances sorted out and on a sound footing. Pay off debts early. Fully fund the reserves. And the REDUCE or ELIMINATE taxes. Businesses will flock to Oconee County if they don’t have to pay property taxes. All those rich business owners will buy up those lake front properties. And guess what: everyone will spend all that money they aren’t paying in property taxes in higher wages and at local businesses. Less government is better government.
Obama is a good orator but still a tax and spend liberal. There is no truth laws when it comes to political speech. A politician can say whatever they want to in speech and then do the opposite until the next election comes and we vote them out of office. How much damage can they do? Just check out what is happening in Anderson County. The outgoing council is approving MILLIONS of dollars in new projects. What we need is less government and lower taxes. Graham and others are using the "crisis" mentality to scare us. So what if the economy collapses (I doubt that it would)? The Depression only lasted 10 years (longer than it would have if the government hadn't intervened). Why is everyone so afraid of a little economic pain for a couple of years? We've survived before and we will again.
Have you read the Fair Taxbook? What is so terrible about it? By reducing the power of elected officials to tweak the tax code you transfer power back to the consumer to vote with their pocketbooks. If you gave your friends access to you credit card how fast do you think they would max it out? How many times have you heard "it's for the children"? How can we not raise taxes if "it's for the children"?
Yet another reason to eliminate property taxes and go to a consumption tax (Fair Tax, sales tax) based funding system. All we need is a bunch of parents with the ability to raise taxes so that their children can have gold plated faucets in their schools. And to take it a step further, yet another reason for government to get out of the education business and for parents to take responsibility for educating their own children either through home schooling or private schools. If government wasn't taking our money through taxes everyone would have money to pay to their children's education.
We continue to accept the premise of this project without critical thinking. The premise is that all things old are historical, beautiful and need to be preserved without question at taxpayer's expense. This premise is wrong in my opinion. What's wrong with building or remodeling an older building with a "historic" appearance? We should preserve only the historically significant. You could make an argument for preserving John Edward's family home, but only if he became president. Many old buildings we try to preserve are just old buildings. Let's learn from our ancestors. Have you ever heard of an archeological dig that didn't find several layers of civilization? Our ancestors buried the old with newer, better buildings. Instead of wasting money trying to preserve an old building, tear it down and put up a new one that has non-lead paint, non-lead pipes and non-asbestos siding.
The state needs to get out of the regulatory business. Government has no role in the free market except to assure than an individual's rights are not violated. If Duke Energy wants to sell more electricity then it will do things to attract businesses to the state without the help of government. Our taxes will go down and we'll have more money to pay higher energy bills or buy a wood burning stove. It will then be our choice, not government's.
Posted on October 27 at 10:32 a.m.
On Taxing, spending, surpluses all grow
See my post about the spec building. I'm from Pickens and say the same things to people in this county.