Hamilton's city council voted down that absurd kilowatt hour tax scheme proposed by Ed Shelton. The Journal-News has more on this story:During the city council meeting of Wednesday, June 25, council members voted 4-1 against a kilowatt-hour tax, with two members withholding a vote in favor of seeking more information.Ed, when you say "yes" to the kilo-watt hour tax, you potentially add a boatload of more people to the supposedly already-forming lines at the homeless shelters. Safety personnel at least have the option of finding another job in another community...the homeless that you would be putting in to the mean streets of the city of Hamilton would just be screwed.
Mayor Don Ryan said that the tax would hurt the city's businesses. He added that if the city increased costs instead of cutting expenditures it would send the wrong message to residents. He said it could be damaging if the city went to them for a levy in the future.
Councilman Ed Shelton voted in favor of the tax while Vice Mayor Pat Moeller and Councilwoman Kathy Becker said more research would be worthwhile.
Shelton argued that levying such a tax was a lesser evil than the alternative of laying off safety personnel.
"When you guys say no to the kilowatt-hour tax, you just laid nine to 10 police officers off and you just laid nine to 10 firefighters off," Shelton said.
Surely you see that Ed...don't you?
Ed, you are a Republican, and members of our party don't believe that raising taxes on the poor and the middle class is the lesser evil...and I am finding it awfully hard to believe that there isn't some frivilous spending somewhere in that bloated budget that you can't cut. Using a liberal tactic, you went straight to "The alternative is taking police officers off the street." Try again, Ed. Please. This is really a no-brainer...
UPDATE: Here is some food for thought from the Chairman of Americans for Limited Government:
In any organization, public or private, there are essential and non-essential services as well as essential and non-essential employees. Unique to government, though, is the philosophy that when tough times come the solution is always to spread the cuts “equally” across government.Read the whole thing, Ed...please.
“We’ve all got to share in the pain,” elected officials will say, usually right before they introduce a bill raising yet another fee or further increasing your tax bill.
This politically-expedient approach fails to acknowledge that there are hundreds of functions that government has no business performing, and hundreds more than may be worthwhile but clearly do not fall under the definition of “core” responsibilities.
“Maximum utility” is never achieved by simply lopping an equal amount off the top of every agency or program during economic downturns. Nor is it achieved by spending every last dime that comes in when times are good.
Each and every year, regardless of the revenue stream coming in, budget writers should start from zero – identifying top priority public needs and then allocating funding based on which government “activities” meet those needs.
