Wednesday, October 23, 2002

When you end up waiting an hour or more before you can cast your ballot at the polls Nov. 5, what do you think will be the reason? Two separate acts of stupidity may account for it.

The gold medal for stupidity goes to our state legislators, for putting on the ballot six proposed amendments to the State Constitution, plus an extra five referendum questions. The silver medal has to go to the voters who don't prepare for them ahead of time and start reading and pondering them in their voting booth at the polls on Election Day.

I have explained this before and I'll explain it again. In case of doubt, you should always vote No on these questions. Unlike the United States which has had one Constitution and 27 amendments since its founding, Georgia has had ten Constitutions and thousands of amendments, most of them punctilious and silly. It demeans our Constitution for us to amend it so much and to load it with nonsense. The only way we can teach our politicians not to trivialize our Constitution and mess it up is for us to say No.

You don't even have to read the question. You just put your finger on No on the new touch screen display in the voting booth. This way you do your patriotic duty and show yourself to be considerate toward your neighbors waiting behind you for their opportunity to vote.

Here's a little rundown on the eleven questions to be presented to us. If time is precious to you, you can simply decide to vote No and skip what follows. Believe me, your vote will still be one of the smartest you've ever cast.

Amendment 1 would prevent people who have been in default in the payment of taxes from becoming political candidates. This is silly. First of all, the voters should be able to make that kind of decision when the candidate is running for office. Secondly, some people are slow in paying their taxes because they are running low on cash. That is a misfortune, but it is not a crime. This is a just a political gimmick, and my prediction as a lawyer is that down the road it will be found to violate our federal Constitution, after we, the public, have spent a great deal of money on lawyers who will fight this thing. Better to kill it now.

Before I discuss the other items, let me observe that, by and large, when we vote to lower one tax we essentially vote to increase another. The government needs a certain amount of revenue to operate, and it's got to come from somewhere. The tax break you give this person and that person generally ends up coming out of your own pocket. Always keep that in mind, and you won't be duped by these proposals.

Amendment 2 would lower property taxes on low-income housing. Note two things: (1) the government could achieve the same result by giving greater subsidies for low-income housing, and (2) that would of course increase your own property taxes. What do you think?

Amendment 3 would provide a complicated tax scheme designed to make people clean up so-called blighted properties other than houses. There are plenty of laws that can lead to the same result without our messing up our Constitution, and if we still have crack houses anywhere in Georgia they should be cleaned up too and not excluded. Bad idea.

Amendment 4 tries to do something similar to Amendment 3, but with land that has hazardous waste. We already have plenty of federal and state laws and Environmental Protection agencies which address the problems of hazardous waste. This late in the game, it's doubtful we need this.

Amendment 5 would halve the property tax on commercial fishing docks. Doesn't that smell fishy to you?

Amendment 6 would provide for a car tag in support of spaying and neutering pets. The deal is you could pay an extra $25 for a special tag and $24 of it would go for the spaying program. I have a better deal for you. Why don't you just write a check for $25 for the Fayette County Humane Society, P.O. Box 244, Fayetteville, GA 30214? All of it will really go toward your goal. Nobody will skim $1 off the top and use much of the rest for bureaucracy, and your tax-deductible contribution will work locally to support the efforts of our local veterinarians who do this work at greatly discounted prices as a contribution to the cause.

Referendum A is supposed to help some senior citizens avoid paying school property taxes, by mucking up some more the formula to compute their income. This won't help any senior citizen in Fayette County as we already have a local law which provides decent exemptions for seniors. The other counties are free to get themselves a local law similar to Fayette County's, the same way we did.

Referendum B seems to bring back a question that was defeated at the polls before. Basically, it offers property tax exemptions to widows of veterans who died in wars. This means that rich widows with lots of land can benefit, and poor widows in nursing homes get nothing. Do you see anything wrong with that? I do.

Referendum C wants to exempt the Atlanta Academy of Medicine from property taxes. The nonprofit corporation which owns the property is just like any other nonprofit organization in the state, and they should all be treated the same. If you agree, you vote No.

Referendum D would exempt commercial fishing boats from property taxes. I can see now how every boat in the state will soon become a commercial fishing boat. Can't you smell what I smell?

Referendum E would exempt tools used to earn a living from property taxes. So far as I am concerned, an airplane is a tool used by pilots, flight attendants and many others to make a living, and so is a car driven to work. This can take us to ridiculous extremes.

I am sorry this note was so long. I told you right at the beginning that you should learn to say no. After a little bit of practice, it's not so difficult. Especially when you take a look at the kind of people who are trying to get you to say yes.

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayetteville

cypaquin@msn.com