First I would like to thank the fine people employed by The Columbian-Progress for doing a commendable job of reporting our local news. In all fairness they are printing articles and viewpoints regardless of whether they personally agree with them or not, which is the reasoning behind my previous comments.
On the other hand it is very apparent that some of our elected officials along with a number of people who reside in other areas have no problem voicing their opinion concerning various issues boasting about increasing taxes for one purpose or another. May I take this opportunity to say that maybe they would be better satisfied if everyone just brought their paycheck to the courthouse and let the officials decide what they think we need to live on regardless of the amount of our pay.
It was recently decided by popular vote that sales tax on motels and restaurants will be increased by 3 percent to fund a sports complex. The sports complex is a whole other subject, which I do not choose to address.
What I do want to address is the issue of taxes. The city made sure to leave the county voters out of the equation simply because they knew it would have no chance in passing. Anyone reading the articles published in this paper could see that Marion County is going to be funding roughly 90 percent of their projected $750,000 tax revenue. Simple mathematics says that if 6 percent of that revenue came from motels that most locals don’t use then roughly another 6 percent would come from those same people using motels to use restaurants. Now I am no great mathematician, but I can see that roughly 88 percent of that projected revenue is coming from the local citizens, mostly of Marion County.
Even now that the tax hike has been approved the city has no documentation as to exactly what this revenue will be funding. Now we have discovered there is no definite location for the proposed sports complex. Maybe it could be located at the BusinessPlex, but, wait, that is in the county jurisdiction. Oops, we didn’t want to include the county in the first place, remember.
Sounds like an opportunity for some major road and bridge funding for the county to me. Hint hint, Board of Supervisors.
On the other issue of constant hype for tax increase is the gasoline tax. I don’t know how anyone else feels but enough is enough. How about all those who keep wanting to raise taxes just explain why the same places they are comparing Mississippi to concerning the gas tax is having the same issues with their roads and bridges. According to other news sources, it is a nationwide problem. Maybe a better topic of discussion would be, where are all the taxes that have been collected for all the years that were allotted for road and bridge repair.
Another added insult to the common voter’s intelligence is all the business owners going around boasting about being in favor of raising the gas tax.
Do they really believe that all of us taxpayers are too dumb to realize that every business owner wishing to raise taxes is only going to pass the cost to the consumer along with an inconvenience fee for themselves?
I surely wonder why they would be in favor of such increases. Surely with all the giveaway programs that we are unwillingly funding already from our measly little income that some ranking official could find a solution for issues without jumping on the tax bandwagon.
Just country boy logic from the northeast forty.
Kenneth McNease
Columbia
