This week there were a couple of Des Moines suburban referendums on new tax levies for school buildings and/or or maintenance. Although not in our school district, I was pleased to see these were voted down. It never made any sense to me that people would vote to tax themselves to begin with, especially when others are taxing them just fine, thank you very much.
I believe in having nice school building and grounds, but the state of Iowa has already lost its collective mind in using sales taxes to raise money for schools. Here in Polk County it started years ago with the passage (on the third try) of a 1 penny sales tax with a so-called 10 year sunset provision. Most counties eventually did this, but then just a few years later, the Des Moines school district wanted to extend that 10-year period, because school districts were burning through the money too quickly. Now all of that is moot, because the state went ahead and just made the extra penny part of the permanent statewide sales tax.
Just like any tax, there is no end to how people will ratchet up the spending to meet the revenue the tax generates. It's completely backward, and as time goes by the addiction for more tax money only gets worse. It's why taxes are basically evil. The spending monster created by taxes doesn't need to be fed, it needs to be starved. I hope these recent votes mean that more people in the city, school district, county, state, and country where I live are starting to figure that out.
No comments:
Post a Comment