We remain perplexed that some county commissioners and other advocates continue to believe that Alamance County residents are gullible enough to support a sales tax increase.
County voters have been asked four times to approve the quarter-cent local option sales tax, and they have overwhelmingly shouted a collective “no” each time.
We see no reason to think anything would be different if a fifth round is held.
There’s an old adage that the definition of “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different outcome.
Yet county commissioners Kelly Allen (who is new to the board) and Steve Carter (who has been around for nearly seven years and should really know better) keep floating the idea of putting the local option sales tax increase on the ballot for a fifth time next year – the soonest the issue can be considered in a countywide election.
Allen’s advocacy was even more egregious this week inasmuch as she asked the county attorney if there was any way to enact the quarter-cent tax directly, without seeking the voters’ input. (There isn’t; state law requires a voter referendum.)
In any event, the same charade is always played when officials want to add the local option sales tax, and voters readily see through it.
The claim is, inevitably, that property tax rates could be lower, or lowered, if only there was more sales tax revenue to offset it.
The rhetoric shifts from year to year, but it usually goes something like this (Carter’s favorite version): all those out-of-county residents shopping at Tanger (the outlet center in Mebane) and Alamance Crossing (the county’s largest shopping center, in Burlington) could be providing a lot of the county’s tax revenues – and, by doing so, concurrently, spare local property owners from onerous property taxes that now account for most of the county’s available funds.
In the past, various advocates of this position have even manufactured the idea that most of the local-option sales tax would come from those out-of-county shoppers. (Despite the fact that there is absolutely no actual evidence to that effect.)
The newest rendition of this argument now includes the forthcoming revenues that could come from Buc-ee’s, a major travel plaza planned for Mebane, as though the millions of travelers expected to stop there each year, could provide enough extra money to finance Alamance County government – and lower property taxes for property owners across the county.
Yet Alamance County voters instinctively understand this simple fact about taxing and spending: no matter what public officials say, they want to spend more, and they’re willing to tax more to do so.
Even if property taxes were initially lowered should a sales tax hike ever be enacted – and we very much doubt the prospect in the first place – we have no doubt that the property tax rate would inevitably bounce right back up very shortly afterwards.
And then local residents would be stuck with a dual layer of taxation – an increase the property tax they already must bear, as well as a new sales tax on most everything that they buy (other than food).
In fact, if voters had the option to vote on property tax rates, we have no doubt that they would vote themselves some relief.
So far, the local electorate continues electing Republican county commissioners – presumably with the constant hope that they’ll be conservative with the public purse and hold the line on taxes.
That expectation continues to disappoint, inasmuch as it has been an all-Republican board that imposed the past two years’ worth of property tax rate increases – and it appears poised to do so again this year although now comprised of four Republicans with one newly-minted independent.
Thus we’re willing to wager that voters, when asked directly to support higher taxes on themselves, are going to say no – again and again. Why are some commissioners such slow learners on the subject?
