Would a frog vote for SPLOST?

Could Fayette voters ever be induced to vote for a 100 percent sales tax?

Sure, they could. Here’s how to do it.

Observe first that a 100 percent income tax would lead people to stop working, and a 100 percent tax on property would cause people to walk away from their property. But the magic of a sales tax is that it could reach 100 percent, or more, and people would still have to buy what they could not produce themselves.

Thus the sales tax is an excellent tax, without any real limits.

We do, in fact, have plenty of people who advocate our having a 27 percent or so federal sales tax to replace the other federal taxes. These people are unfazed by that number, and it would take only a certain amount of salesmanship and cleverness to bring them up to 100.

Here’s how to get it done.

The first step is to find projects, one by one, that could be seen or at least promoted as worthwhile.

Step number two is to bundle these projects in neat little packages that can be had with a 1 percent sales tax, such as a SPLOST.

Then, while diverting people’s attention from the fact these SPLOSTs are piling up, you sell one SPLOST after another. While people focus their attention on the potential benefits of the next forthcoming SPLOST, whose cost is euphemistically belittled as a penny tax, they are invited to forget the tax burdens they have already assumed.

If you keep people’s mind focused on the one SPLOST’s benefits versus the tax, many people will want the benefits and thus agree to the tax.

The problem here is that each tax comes on top of another, with no end in sight.

People who read the Atlanta paper are aware there is now considerable pressure on our Georgia General Assembly to authorize yet another SPLOST, statewide or on a regional basis (meaning especially the counties all around Atlanta), to solve our so-called transportation problems.

Chambers of Commerce and high-level executives in Atlanta (the Republican base) support that, and the legislature may give in as soon as early next year (2010) so voters may approve that in the November 2010 election.

Everybody’s reasoning seems to be that if the voters vote for it, why not? People stuck in traffic are prime candidates for the SPLOST siren song, and everyone encounters traffic problems at times.

Most Georgia counties’ sales tax is now 7 percent, with the most sensible exception in Cobb County where it is 6 percent. Some people may not realize that the sales tax in Atlanta is now 8 percent, the extra 1 percent being for sewers. With this extra SPLOST the Atlanta tax would rise to 9 percent, and our Fayette tax could rise to 8 percent.

Offer a SPLOST to help restore our teachers’ salaries to what they were, and you’ll find support for another SPLOST. There is in fact a movement in the state to reform the way we finance public education, as poor counties would like the assistance of rich counties (read Fayette) to finance their school systems. The proposed solution is more sales tax, and perhaps not just 1 percent.

There is no end to worthwhile projects that could be financed with a sales tax. Find the tax revenue and a politician will find a way to spend it.

There are stories about putting frogs in a vat of cold water and then heating the water. As the water temperature rises, the frogs seem not to notice and fail to jump out in time to avoid certain death.

I doubt sales taxes will kill us, but on a cumulative basis they certainly can overcome our realistic ability to pay. Virtually none of us buy everything we find desirable. Plenty of sellers out there dangle their wares in front of us with entreaties to “buy me, buy me.”

Many times we have the wisdom and find the strength to say no.

Every SPLOST vote represents a test of wisdom and strength of character. Hey, we’re not frogs!

[Claude Y. Paquin, a Fayette county resident, is a retired lawyer and actuary whose professional concentration has been on taxation. The recipient of the Prentice-Hall Tax Award upon graduating from Emory law school, he has authored one book and numerous articles on taxes.]

$PLISH $PLOST Economics...frog legs anyone.

Submitted by grassroots on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 2:32pm.

If you don't get out and vote NO on SPLOST then you are part of the boiling frog syndrome. Like watching the empty retail spaces? What kind of incentive is it to continue to put the burden on them. Our politicians should be more proactive in coming up with ideas to move houses, create a friendly business atmosphere and deter future environmental disasters like the WFB that will never be completed just like the TDK. Go to : http://www.splostpoll.blogspot.com/
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