Category — Taxation

After more than $700 billion in taxpayer-subsidised bailouts for irresponsible corporations, and after our government has absorbed massive private debt into the already-enormous public debt, our American economy is still finding a way to blow itself up.

The Dow continues to fall by triple digits every day.  Today, it closed at 8,579.  One year ago today the Dow achieved a record high of 14,164.  That’s right — in one year, the Dow has lost more than 5,500 points, or 39%.  That’s a paper loss of $8.3 trillion.

We’re not just giving more (public) money to the folks that got us into this mess in the first place; we’re assuming their debts so that they don’t have to worry about them.  I’m tired of this trickle-down BS.  The Bush-McCain economic policy has resulted in eight years of economic decline.  Let’s stop letting folksy, likeable characters like Bush, McCain, and Palin run the show, and hand the reins over to someone with a damn head on his shoulders.

District 2 Councilman Sam Hall posted today on the proposed Automatic Aid Response Agreement which I railed against last week.  It’s worthwhile reading.

Currently, the City of Pensacola and Escambia County have a mutual agreement to provide police and fire services to each other when requested. For example, if there was a fire in the County, but there was a Pensacola Fire Department station closer to the fire, Escambia County could request that PFD respond, and we typically would.  And vice-versa.

Tomorrow evening the Pensacola City Council will vote on an “Automatic Aid Response Agreement”, which would automate that process in certain areas, meaning basically that the closest units, whether City or County, would respond.

That all sounds great, in theory.  In practice, City police and fire responds into the County much more often than the County responds into the City.  My problem with that is that City residents pay a premium in taxes for the better services of City police and fire.

An example of this is the fire last year at Jerry’s Cajun Café.  Jerry’s is located in unincorporated Escambia County, in one of a bunch of stupid enclaves created by our haphazard City limits.  Even though PFD Station 6 is located about a half-mile from Jerry’s (you can see one from the other), it was a County fire and the City was not requested to respond for some time, and by then, the place was mostly gone.

Some folks say that’s a shame.

I say you get what you pay for.

Now, if Jerry Mistretta voluntarily annexed into the City, and paid City taxes, PFD trucks would have been there before it got out of the kitchen, and maybe he’d only have been closed for a few weeks instead of seven months.

Why would we as City taxpayers want to give County residents access to our better services for free?

Links

• City Council Neighbourhood Services Committee video (wmv)

The PNJ quoted Pensacola City Councilman Jack Nobles as saying, regarding recent efforts to cut City property taxes:

“I think the budget we passed is a fiscally responsible budget. We have spread the monies in the right places. I was a little disappointed when I got my tax notice that it wasn’t a little lower, but we did what the voters wanted with Amendment 1.”

A little disappointed? It’s nice to know that even banker Jack Nobles, senior vice president of the Bank of Pensacola, is stressing over taxes. Jack thinks his share’s a little too high.

Come on, Jack!

Could you be any more insulting?

The Escambia BOCC voted last night to cut the millage rate, which determines property taxes, from 8.017 to 6.9755 mils. This will represent a savings of $100-200 for the average homeowner, and a cut to the County budget of $27.7 million. Now, the county will make up some of that — around $13 million — from new revenue, as courts have ruled the County can now levy property taxes against the residents of Pensacola Beach. Even so, that’s still a big budget cut, and while tax relief is certainly welcome, I don’t know that I trust our BOCC to handle any budget cut responsibly.

Links

• PNJ: “County rolls back property tax rates”