Scurrying around the halls of the Taj Mahal at 75 Calhoun these days are minions planning the Charleston County School District's next building program. Much hand-wringing has ensued over its inability to continue alternative financing, the method for its program reaching its completion in 2010. How to get the millions? How to get the millions? Scylla and Charybdis appear on the radar screen.
In the vernacular, that's a rock and a hard place. The school district actually must put the question to the (gasp!) voters. Let's see, which would the voters prefer? [See School Board Weighs Finance Options in Thursday's P&C.]
That master of understatement, Michael Bobby, the district's chief financial officer is quoted as saying, "'The fact that we have to be on the ballot with the building program presents some real challenges and considerations.'" No kidding! The two options on the table? " a bond referendum or a sales tax increase."
Incredible as it may seem to the sane, the Board leans toward putting a sales tax on the ballot "which would be accompanied by a reduction in property taxes."
See, cynically the educrats and the majority of Board members think that people who don't own property (the poor) also don't vote. Therefore, the way to sugarcoat a tax increase is to promise the most likely voters a decrease in property taxes. Didn't the state of South Carolina just do that? Isn't it in trouble already by attempting to finance through falling sales tax revenues? Where will this madness end?
At least Chris Collins spoke up for the poor, knowing full well that the burden of financing through sales taxes falls most heavily on them. No one else seems to care or understands the issue. Chair Ruth Jordan opened her mouth to prove that she needs to take Economics 101, making the economically-illiterate statement (regarding an increase in the sales tax) that ""We all bear the same burden. . . It's the most fair way.'"
Painful, isn't it?
I need to create a new label: super-idiocies.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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2 comments:
The European's VAT (value added tax) is starting to look cheaper than our ever increasing sales tax. Only the vat Tax is included in the original sales price. The price you see is the price you pay.
With our American style sales tax, sticker shock only gets worse at the check out counter. Like with what CCSD is saying about our schools and how it runs them, there is very little truth in advertising. The price tag you see first doesn't address the total cost. Our sales tax gets added on at the point of sale.
Who's kidding whom? A sales tax increase on Charleston County merchants and their customers is just one more way CCSD is putting its fiscal burdens on the backs of others. The people who will be hit most are those least likely to hold school leaders accountable. Is CCSD's proposed new tax shift even legal? Will groceries be exempted? Or is this just another back door way for CCSD to take away the breaks the legislature gave taxpayers (some taxpayers more than others) in 2007? Who's watching these people? Certainly not the Chamber of Commerce. How about it Mr. Fraser?
After reading the Sunday moring edition of the P&C, I am more convinced CCSD couldn't care less for the plight of the poor (i.e. any household that makes less than the $130,000 plus annual saleries of CCSD's top 10.) If moving school tax increases into the pockets of the consumers as added sales taxes wasn't enough, CFO Mike Bobby is now saying the school district should help underwrite private land developers at the expense of existing school taxpayers. Anywhere but Charleston this would be intolerable.
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