These words were uttered by Slick at approximately 7pm as we drove home from the polling place. I put on my best, mock Irish tenor voice and sang a few lines of "God Bless America" for her. Laughter & a round of "God Bless My Underwear" ensued.
Everything was local: Mayor, 2 Town Council Seats & 2 County-Wide votes. The controversial one was a new tax on property sales paid by the owners. I swear we got a card in the mail every day for a month to vote "No" on this new tax. By the middle of the second week, I realized that the concerned civic organization was really a lobbying group of developers. Duh!
Properties are being turned over at an alarming rate around here. Our region is still booming. The house across the street from us is working on it's third owner. It was built 2 years ago! Developers have been building mega-sized house-farms as far as the eye can see, but with no incentive or requirement to help with infrastructure, schools or consideration for the effects of increased traffic. The county finally realized that we're screwing ourselves and realized that we've got to generate income to pay for these much-needed services. Options include raising property tax, sales tax or this home sale tax. Of course the developers don't want to pay this when they sell new homes. Slick pointed out that this particular tax (unlike so many local taxes) will be progressive since it's based on the value of the property sold.
Needless to say, as a home-owner, I don't want to pay more to sell. On the other hand, I would rather have the new schools & water treatment plants we need AND I would rather not have an increased property or sales tax to do so. Those taxes eat at our cost of living.
The sad thing is that the mail-bomb campaign will probably work. It certainly "scared" me before I got the facts. Many busy and confused people will probably vote "No" to anything that might hurt the value of their home. The housing bust hasn't really reached us, but everyone seems to be holding their breath.
Yeah, God bless America all-right...
1 comment:
It is amazing that as soon as people hear the dirty three letter T word, they want out scream and shout. Your area sounds much like all of NJ, build and build but worry about infrastructure later. No wonder there is so much flooding now. Hey, what we need is another CVS or strip mall in NJ so people can spend money on frivolous things, but pay an extra cent in taxes to improve schools or anything else beneficial in the long run. NO WAY. Unfortunately, because my son was sick and very difficult last night, I did not get out to vote. Not a good thing, especially since the stem cell research bill was not passed. - MetsFan
Post a Comment