Nathan Moore's Thoughts
Myth Debunked
Bill Hobbs posts on the proposal by some in Mount Juliet that they elect a home rule city charter, which would give the citizens of the city the right to vote on any tax increases by referendum. City Commissioner Jim Bradshaw makes the same old argument that opponents of the property tax amendment are making
[City Commissioner Jim] Bradshaw said he would caution Mt. Juliet about amending any city charter under home rule and turning over power on taxes to residents. “If every tax increase had to be voted on in a referendum, it would be extremely cumbersome,” he said. “That can really restrict the city in ways they can’t even imagine.”
Bill kills the myth. Hobbs continues
Not really. Someone please tell Commissioner Bradshaw that residents in every city and town in Colorado currently have the right to vote on all proposed tax hikes and municipal debt increases (bond issues), and also on whether their local government may keep and spend surplus tax revenue. From November of 1993 through November 2004 there have been more than a thousand such referenda at the local and county level across Colorado.
Voters said “yes” to higher taxes, spending and government debt more than half of the time. According to the Colorado Municipal League, voters approved 198 of 293 ballot questions to increase government debt, and rejected only 95 - a 68 percent approval rate. They approved 420 of 479 ballot questions to allow the government to retain and spend surplus revenue (the size of the surplus is determined by a formula in state law) and rejected only 59 such requests - an 88 percent approval rate. And voters approved 248 of 459 ballot questions to allow tax increases or new taxes, and rejected 211 - a 54 percent approval rate.
The calls for alarm on kicking taxation authority back to the constituents are overblown, to say the least. It’s painful to hear a elected representative tell the people who elected him that they are not smart enough to manage their own city’s finances. If the people cannot be trusted to vote on taxation, the issue closest to all of us when dealing with our governments, then they certainly cannot be trusted to elect representatives to do the same task. It’s circular logic of the worst kind.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Tennesseans are now over-policed, yet they want more money for more detectives, and to pay even more government informants with. We have our money sucked from us for our school system, such as paying for indoor olympic size swimming pools for all the middle Tn high schools/building on to ETSU’s recreation area 23,000,000/etc. Where does the accountability come into question concerning our tax dollars. We have no beauro to watch government spending, yet have the biggest beaurocracy in mankind’s history! Accountability, that is what us tax payers want to see!
November 9th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
On Pelosi’s Hate Crime/Hate speech laws
Legislation calling Bible scriptures “coercion”
in attempts at censorship:
The Hate Crime-Hate Speech laws (Pelosi’s Bill) violates the separation of church and state in the founding father’s original intent, which was to keep the state out of the church, and out of the church’s doctrines and teachings!
The hate crime legislation is going back before our legislators again concerning hate speech laws. This is legislation that will cause reading the Bible, teaching the Bible to our children and others, and distributing the Bible to become ‘hate speech,’ or a ‘hate crime,’ against homosexuals.
This same legislation was called the ‘Chill Bill,’ or Bible As Hate Literature Act, in Canada which censored the Bible, and made distributing it and teaching it illegal.
This has been pushed by the liberals, and was being pushed by hatecrime.org, as they listed all the Christian Bible teachers on TBN as ‘ministers of hate,’ for saying homosexuality is sin.
This will create the first religious prisoner in American History, and it supports ‘thought crime’ legislation.
Please support keeping free religious speech in the Christian churches, and the freedoms that our founding fathers supported us having… The freedom to debate any issue from a religious viewpoint, as well as a scientific viewpoint!!!! Lets not sit back and let our legal rights to debate the issue of homosexuality be taken away from us, and let censorship of our religious worship step in!
The libertarian saying that “if they take away their rights today, they will take away our rights tomorrow” applies here. If they can censor the Bible, make it the first book to be banned… What book will be next. I am sure it will be banned first, just as in Nazi Germany, where politically correct laws were passed called ‘good speak,’ and of course led to making the Bible illegal, and being burned in the streets!
We are on the brink of the beginning of thought crime legislation, and horrible censorship. No group will be immune to this kind of legislation if we let Pandora’s box be opened!
Carrie Scoggins
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I can’t help but hear about Bible-censoring legislation without thinking of “Fahrenheit 451,” “1984,” “Brave New World”…it makes them seem prophetic. People would rather have tolerance than thought.