Austin Statesman Attacks Medina on Tax Proposal
Medina tax swap proposal comes at a cost
Critics say eliminating all property taxes would reduce local control.
By Kate Alexander
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 10:43 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010
Published: 8:56 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010
Debra Medina, the feisty Republican running for governor, promises Texans that she will liberate them from their property taxes.
"I talk about that for freedom reasons first," Medina said at the Jan. 29 gubernatorial debate.
"We've surrendered private property ownership to the ever-growing state — we lease our property in the form of ever increasing rents known as property taxes," she wrote on her campaign Web site. "We've forgotten that ownership is an essential element of freedom."
A call to eliminate property taxes might resonate with many taxpayers, beleaguered by the demands for more money from schools, cities, counties, emergency districts and more when their wallets are thin.
But critics say the freedom Medina promises would come at a huge cost to local taxpayers because they would lose a critical element of control over the governments closest to them.
As envisioned by Medina, the property taxes now paid by Texans — $39 billion as of last year — would be replaced with a sales tax applied to more services and to real estate transfers.
Texas would be the only state not to have local property taxes, if Medina's plan were to be adopted, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington.
The state would collect the sales tax dollars and redistribute them to local governments based on "sharing formulas," according to the campaign's Web site. Campaign officials did not provide someone to explain Medina's plan.
The practical effect would be to make local governments beholden to state government for every tax dollar and thus concentrate decision-making power in the Texas Capitol, said Kail Padgitt, a staff economist for the Tax Foundation.
"Cities and schools and other governmental entities would be at the mercy of us in Austin, and they would have no local control, which is one of the banner themes in Republican politics," said state Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Continued at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/medina-tax-swap...
All publicity...
.... is good publicity.
Plano TX
Good lord....
What's so complicated offering a solution to their postured "problem"?
Sales taxes could be collected by the County(s) (the primary accounting tier).... which would de-centralize Austin's "power".
The County then disburses a percentage to Austin...
a percentage to each municipality...
and retains the remainder.
NOT a problem... a de-centralized solution. Done.
De-Centralize the "decision making" on percentages by
referendum only.... popular vote decides how much money
is retained "locally" by Statewide voting.
The People decide how the pie is cut.
I like Medina's idea. I want
I like Medina's idea. I want to see government wallets thin. That's what freedom is all about. Government is there to protect our freedoms, and little else. It's not supposed to feed us, to entertain us, or to tell us how to live.
Without substantial revenues, government cannot do more than what is required of it. And that suits me fine.
Thanks
for sharing this important article, Steve. Several of the comments there are anti-Medina; I hope that changes.
Also, she (Medina) should remedy this, and fast, imo: "...Campaign officials did not provide someone to explain Medina's plan..."
Berwick, Columbia County, Pennsylvania
Ron Paul 2012 - The People's Choice
rEVOLution SuperPAC: http://www.revolutionpac.com/
WTP Federal Lawsuit to BAN ALL ELECTRONIC VOTING
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2011-07-26...
Habit4: This is a great rebutal to the anti-Medina story.
There needs to be more like this one!
12:11 PM on February 8, 2010
hempadvocate.
Not sure why some of you don't get it... it's simply really... if we as a people are going to honor and respect the institution of private property ownership we cannot make it subject to an annual rent payable to the local tax assessor in the form of so-called "property taxes."
As long as you must pay an annual property tax on your house you are never truly the owner but merely the tenant who resides at the discretion of the landlord.
The right to own property is one of the fundamental rights that lead to our revolution and independence... it's sad that so many now are willing to trade that sacred right for petty services offered to you by the armed tax collectors.