Council passed the city’s annual budget last night, John Yellig writes in today’s Daily Progress. In the process they further cut the real estate tax rate from the planned $1.00 to $0.99, the biggest rate cut in city history. That’s thanks to the 18.8% spike in real estate assessments this year. No services were cut with the new budget.
Republican Rob Schilling voted against the budget, as always, preferring not to participate in the process. He demanded more tax cuts but couldn’t locate any corresponding services to eliminate. Sounds like a lot like our leadership in Richmond and D.C., don’t it?
When I hear it framed as a tax cut, after they *raised* the real estate assessments I can’t help but just tsk and shake my head. That was a shell game on par with those of federal politicians.
I think Waldo was accurate in his statement that the tax rate was cut, not the taxes themselves. That said the city will have a lot more money to work with.
I think Waldo was inaccurate in taking what I think is a cheap shot at Rob Schilling. Without Schilling’s prodding, Council might not have cut the tax rate at all. I haven’t seen reasons for Schilling’s no vote on the budget, but a no vote is certainly participating in the process. Are all the Dems in the statehouse or in Congress who vote no not participating in the process?
Remember, though, that “they” didn’t raise the assessments. Those float with the free market. The city has no control over them.
I think it’s hardly a cheap shot. The man demanded tax cuts without any corresponding service cuts. That’s classic crappy governance. That’s why the federal budget is such a disaster, and that’s why the General Assembly is in day 35 of overtime down in Richmond. I’m very happy to see proposals for cutting taxes provided that there are corresponding service cuts.
Demanding tax cuts without corresponding services cuts is cowardly. It’s reelection pandering of the worst kind.
I certainly understand where you are coming from, and if the post had been over at your personal site, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. But on “cvillenews,” I guess I expected less opinionating here as opposed to there. Might just be a personal thing. I’ll get over it.
I’m guessing that Schilling feels like he’s tilting at windmills on council, and being obstreperous is his best way of being heard.
I can appreciate that. I’ve been gradually changing the tone of my writing here, over the past year, ever since I gave up on pretending to be objective and declared my biases in March of ’05. Part of that is because, hey, I’ve got a soap box, so why not? Part of that is also because it helps to generate discussion, providing a perspective that others can react to. And part of it is in hopes that I might drive others to create their own blogs when they see that a blog can be totally partisan. :)
I had to look that up. That’s a great word. :)
I’m glad that Councilman Schilling’s “contribution” to the tax rate cut is finally being talked about. He is taking credit for the tax cut because he voted in favor of it but doesn’t vote for the budget because that is the politically easy way to do it. The budget is the reason you can have a tax cut. Other Councilors made the hard decisions to cut funding without cutting services that enabled the tax rate decrease. I just wish the folks with the Schilling signs up in the yard really knew the man behind all of the politically motivated speeches and actions. It takes courage and conviction to be an effective public official, in reality he has neither.
Council failed to make even a single service cut. At a time of skyrocketing assessments, that failure is unforgivable. Council is turning its back on the middle class, and the city will suffer as a result. A six-cent rate cut is not enough when your assessment has just risen by 18 or 20 percent. Schilling is far from perfect, but I prefer to keep him on council as a counterweight to the spendthrift Dems.
The impulse is good; the man is wrong. It’s a shame that every decent Republican in town is too smart to run for Council.