It does no good, in strength of argument, to repeat the same errors again, in the hope they’ll be more convincing the second time.
From the August 24th edition of the Daily Union, Whitewater school board advances two referendums:
If the new referendum is approved, the taxpayers will not see an increase in what they currently pay.
“At this point, it is tax neutral, since it is already in the levy,” said district business director Jim Strasburg.
From an August 16th post at FREE WHITEWATER, A Referendum for Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Schools:
….it’s unconvincing to suggest that the referendum carries no additional tax impact, since it’s a continuation of an existing tax burden. The WUSD’s Director of Business Services, Jim Strasburg, makes that contention:
Strasburg said the referendum – because it is a
continuation of an original referendum and its related tax
burden – carries no additional tax impact for district
residents. “That money is already in the levy,” he said.There may be a justification for the referendum’s passage; this is not it.
Director Strasburg is wrong in his analysis. The extension of an existing tax burden, set to expire, is an additional burden, and so has an additional (tax) impact. For that matter, the imposition of a tax or cost is a burden at each time and occasion it’s imposed. It’s impossible for it to be otherwise. All resources are allocated, all costs borne, in conditions of scarcity where one use precludes other possible uses.
This is no reason to support the extension of tax or spending proposals – that something has been a burden and obligation in the past does not justify continuing it. The presumption in a community should always be against taking privately earned money from those who earned it. It may be a rebuttable presumption, but it should be a presumption nonetheless. To suggest otherwise it to declare that current tax and spending policy is unalterable, except by way of increase.
There’s a seeming change in the defense of the existing tax, from the contention that it presents no additional burden (of course it does) to the contention that it’s tax neutral.
Tax neutrality is another way of saying, as I noted over a week ago, that “current tax and spending policy is unalterable, except by way of increase.” In any event, there’s nothing neutral about a tax that one feels year after year, need not feel without a new referendum, and under a theory that defines neutrality only the same or more (never less) in taxes.
There may be a good case for this referendum. Unpersuasive claims about lack of additional impacts or ersatz neutrality aren’t part of that case.
Update: 9:22 PM — The argument here isn’t that there’s nothing such as tax neutrality as a concept (in any possible fiscal plan for any entity), but rather that the given referendum question on exceeding revenue caps for this district isn’t tax neutral, and to contend otherwise is a misuse of the term.