The cat is out of the bag, as Citizen editor-at-large Dave Hamrick told us last week that he tends to favor a sales tax (to pay for the courthouse and jail) and that he'd rather let future residents pay for whatever construction is needed in five years, on the ground “there's plenty to go around.”

Those of us who had the impression that our newspapers favored SPLOST now have confirmation. But the insidious part of Dave Hamrick's comment is “there's plenty (of construction projects) to go around,” because that confirms what we all knew all along: these increased taxes are not meant to disappear. They are permanent. Canadians, who pay much more income tax than we do and just as much property tax if not more, also pay 15 percent in sales tax. How do you think they got there? One percent at a time.

I hope it is not impertinent of me to suggest that those who like higher taxes ought to move to areas with higher taxes. You could tell the nice immigration officer at the Canadian border that you are a refugee seeking to escape the persecution of lower taxes. If they let you in after your sanity hearing, you're all set.

In the world of SPLOST, the award of the week has to go to the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, which managed to secure an article devoted to its endorsement of a non-SPLOST method for financing the courthouse and jail.

The Chamber, which certainly wasn't heard singing that tune when a SPLOST was sought to finance new schools, has by now discovered “the matching principle of finance” where the payment for the asset is better spread over the period when benefits are received from the project. It also discovered that property tax payments toward the project would be deductible on income tax returns. Isn't it funny the Chamber had not thought of that earlier when we had our SPLOST votes?

The Chamber's press release indicates its support for a financing method that does not require a vote from the citizens on the ground the people cannot be counted on to vote for general obligation bonds or SPLOST. In a twisted form of reasoning, the Chamber states that if SPLOST were to be defeated at the polls, “the county will be unable by law to move forward on the project until the next voting cycle in two years.”

That is pure poppycock. It assumes, first of all, that the people are too dumb to vote for a good project financed through a smart financing method (you know, one that uses the matching principle of finance and yields income tax deductions). But worse, it shows the dangers of practicing law without a license by misrepresenting what the law is.

Section 48-8-111(e) of the Official Code of Georgia provides that if the SPLOST is defeated “the question of imposing the tax shall not again be submitted to the voters of the county until after 12 months immediately following the month in which the election was held.”

The project is not prevented from going forward at all, because, if it wants to, the county can submit a vote on bonds (but not on SPLOST) every month of the year, and forever, until it passes. The county can also use a financing method which does not require a vote. For a SPLOST it has to wait one year, not two years. The Chamber does itself and the citizens a disservice by telling us the fairy tale it did.

Most interesting is the timing of the Chamber's endorsement. We see the Chamber's endorsement in the Wednesday paper, and lo and behold, the next evening the county commission adopts the very financing method that the Chamber had endorsed. How's that for timing?

What I suspect happened is that one of the county commissioners asked the Chamber to provide this endorsement, to help stifle any criticism of the county commission for doing without a vote of the people.

I am delighted to see the Chamber has learned enough about accounting and taxation to acknowledge that SPLOST would be an undesirable method of financing projects like the courthouse and jail. However, if the Chamber is to earn the respect and confidence of the people, it needs to do its homework and avoid misleading the people as it did in its published release. Becoming more involved in public issues is a noble goal, but only if you tell the truth.

Given the vegetative state of our school board, it probably missed the line, above, stating that a bond vote could be held every month forever until it passes. Whenever it truly becomes imperative we get new school buildings in the county, please nudge a school board member from his sleep and call his attention to this line.

Claude Y. Paquin
Fayette County
cypaquin@msn.com

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