The following is great reading so please take the time to read and also share If you’re Taxed Enough Already and 9% is the maximum tax rate you will tolerate ... who’s to blame for that ... it has to be the city and state, not the County. The County has one of the lowest tax rates in the State of Oklahoma. Grady County’s tax rate is the 7th lowest out of our 77 counties. In fact, we could add a full 1 cent tax and still be in the bottom half of the state. Grady county fire department has done a great job. You are in the top 3 of Oklahoma’s county departments. It’s because you are efficient. You are responsible with tax money and contributions. A big percent of your revenue is derived from taxes and you manage it well. If all groups were as efficient as you, we wouldn’t be here tonight, wouldn’t have a $17 Trillion national deficit... there wouldn’t even be a “TEA Party”. Again, you’re doing everything right ... and I give you all a sincere Thank You. But to be blunt ... That is your job, right? Isn’t that supposed to be the job of everyone taking money from the public? At the end of the day - and with “thank you” aside - this is just another tax proposal and it has to stand on its own merits. This is how I see this Tax: How much of our money are they expecting to get with this tax? A truck driver can make projections, the city managers can give us their quick guess as well ... but where is the proper study? Why EXACTLY are they saying they need it? Where is their 10 year budget for the money? They don’t have one. Saying “The only fair way is to give all the same amount” is lazy at best and recklessly wasteful at worst. No one does a budget like that. How in the world did the commissioners even let this get to a ballot? Imagine this - Toilet paper is to be distributed FAIRLY per fire station. If it’s 1-man fire station or a 17-man station -- each of them get 6 rolls per month - no more, no less ... because that’s fair. Will they get to fires faster? Nope. Will our insurance rates go down? Nope. What do we get for our multi-million dollar investment? What can they guarantee us? Basically nothing. And of course 2 to 4 Million is simply wasted right off the top. What’s going to stop the City Managers from simply cutting funding to their city departments once they get outside funding? They would do it ... the city departments will see no benefit ... so that money is essentially wasted, as far as Fire-departments are concerned. When this tax was brought up back in January, all these concerns were known. What did they do about them? Nothing! They had all year (maybe since 2006) to ask questions, to analysis, to create budgets, ask people’s opinions, throw out a survey ... anything. I guess none of them wanted any public input ... just public money. I don’t know the elite group that created this tax, behind closed doors ... but if I were a County Commissioner, I would be completely embarrassed to have this on the ballot. Compare this tax to the Senior Citizen Nutrition Center tax. The Senior Nutrition tax pulled on our heart strings to get their tax passed. They said “What if our funding is cut?” “How will we feed our seniors?” “How will we make repairs?” Well, funding was not cut and the tax passed. Today they have a cash balance of about $1.5 million in the bank ... their repairs are done and the people are fed. They should have known the 1/8 cent tax was way too high ... Wonder if they did a study? Now they have enough money, way more than enough. Are they saving that excess money for a rainy day? Nope. Are they offering the excess money back to the taxpayer? Nope. Instead, They want to change the rules so they can spend our tax dollars on things outside of the scope of the tax. (It’s on the same ballot as the fireman tax) This is exactly how government grows and grows every time. Once they start getting money, they never let it stop. Want another example... The Turner Turnpike. Originally, it was to be a toll road until the 1990’s, and then once paid for, it becomes a regular State highway. That sounds like a good deal, I see why they passed it but how’d that work out? The folks getting paid wanted to keep getting paid. They changed the rules, created the Turnpike Authority, added 9 more Turnpikes and added all that debt to the original debt. That bill will never be paid-in-full. The OTA even has another 25 turnpikes “Pre-Approved by the Oklahoma Legislature” they can add at some point in the future. One more example ... this was on TV last night: The Lottery. (“Lottery” is an indian word for “A tax for people that are bad at math”). Senator Brad Henry told us the Lottery would give schools $500 million a year. Just a few years later Governor Brad Henry said it would be $300 million to schools. Then a couple years later, when all the paperwork was finalized and he signed it, Governor Henry said it would be $150 Million a year to schools. Our schools have never seen more than about $70 million. Last year, they got $66 million. That works out to one teacher per school minus benefits. Better than nothing, but nowhere near the promise. Brad Henry was interviewed and said the problem was that schools are earmarked for 35%. If only they would change the rules ... not guarantee the schools anything ... then we could offer higher lottery prizes and more people would buy lottery tickets and maybe the schools could get more money. These things never work how they are intended. They only change and grow and the bulk of the money is wasted. Grady County... you have done an amazing job doing things the right way. You don’t really want to be like the Turnpike Authority or the Federal Government or any other of the wasteful government entities everyone resents. Volunteer departments are loved and respected because they are NOT seen like that. They are seen as a symbol of Community. It says “Your Donations Paid for This Truck” on the back of a Friend firetruck. That fills the community with pride. What if it said “Money remaining after wasting your tax dollars paid for this truck”... Im pretty sure that would just really infuriate us. But on the bright side!! Look what this tax has caused. Chickasha and Tuttle and the County and the fire departments (even the Tea Party) have all came together to discuss a tax ... that is a great thing! Imagine ... what could have happened if we had met like this BEFORE this tax was recklessly thrown on the ballot. Thank you for your time. • Mark Keeling is the leader of the Grady County Tea Party
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 20:23:53 +0000
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