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Editorial Opinion

What Gives?

Three members of the Shelby County Commission cast votes Monday for a proposal that may be good politics but makes for unsound public policy. This initiative — for a five-cent across-the-board reduction in the county property tax — came from Wyatt Bunker, who represents the county’s suburban and rural edge and its ideologically conservative edge, as well.

According to Bunker, the proposal, if enacted, would have cut $8 million out of county revenues for the next fiscal year — although the commissioner maintains that such a cut would, sooner or later, raise revenues. Right. The same logic pursued by the relentlessly tax-cutting Bush administration has driven the national deficit to new historical heights.

Various of Bunker’s commission colleagues expressed exasperation with the proposal, especially since A) it came just after a tense debate concerning the commission’s need to divert wheel-tax money originally earmarked as operating funds for the schools into the county’s general fund, where it can be tapped for future capital improvements, and B) it followed weeks of a painstaking budgetary process, now concluded, in which every stray corner of county government was scrutinized for real or potential waste.

Yet, two other commissioners, fellow suburbanite George Flinn and Chairman Joe Ford of Memphis’ inner city, joined with Bunker in voting for the proposal which, had it passed, would have thrown county government back to square one in its financial planning for the next cycle.

What gives? Well, the legitimate needs of the taxpayers would have been first. As several commissioners pointed out, the needs of the schools would have come asunder, closely followed by law enforcement. It made a certain political sense for Bunker and Flinn to vote the way they did, since they represent (or believe they represent) constituents who favor tax cuts at all costs. But what was Chairman Ford, who normally balances policy and service needs with the legitimate requirements of fiscal solvency, thinking?

Ford, who must have known the discussion and the vote were pro forma, urged Bunker to reintroduce the proposal next year. Fair enough. At least that will give the commission enough lead time to reorganize fiscal priorities so as to facilitate such an across-the-board cut, if that’s what they regard as needful. Given Governor Bredesen’s success in imposing drastic cuts when he took office in 2003, we’re not saying the idea of an across-the-board cut is impossible. But the last time we looked, the governor was taking some criticism of policy changes (his gutting of TennCare, for example) that we regard as legitimate.

Property owners are surely entitled to relief and deserve consideration of the sort just awarded in Nashville, where state senator Mark Norris and state representative John DeBerry won passage of legislation authorizing the state’s local governments to enact limited tax freezes for seniors.

Those eligible in Shelby County are homeowners at least 65 years old with incomes not exceeding $31,549. That amounts to 59 percent of the county’s senior households and is consistent with Shelby County’s unique need for balance between revenues and services. When it can, the commission should act upon the new law. Anything more drastic will have to wait.

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Lots of Lots

Mary Cashiola’s article (In the Bluff, April 12th issue) is interesting in regards to the county’s dilemma of excess property. We basically “rent” the property. Try not paying property taxes and see who has really claimed your land!  

Marxists have sought to disguise their revolutions under the cover of “agrarian reform,” a redistribution of land, the most thorough form of revolution. Under this guise, Mao was able to popularize his revolution in both China and among American liberals. The Ukraine, once the breadbasket of Europe under the czars, cannot now sustain itself. When the state owns all the land, the people are reduced not only to political servitude but to starvation, as well.  

The basis of the property tax is the totalitarian concept that the state owns all the land. The tax is the rent that the nominal owner pays to that government for the privilege of using its land. This arrangement is known as “serfdom.” They say it ended in the 1700s, but in America, we have simply replaced the feudal lord with the state. Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall penned these words in the 1819 McCulloch v. Maryland case: “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” A property tax is an attempt by the state to destroy the family. If one improves one’s property, it results in a higher tax. This acts as a disincentive to improve the condition of one’s property. That which controls your property and wealth controls you.

Charles Gillihan Memphis

Don “Ho” Imus

Yesterday, my wife and I ate dinner at the Midtown Huey’s. About halfway through our meal, a young woman behind me asked for our attention. She paid my wife a compliment on her hair, and for the remainder of the meal we had a pleasant conversation with this stranger and her friend. Afterward, we parted ways, no longer strangers, commenting that we hoped to see them around town again. What is interesting is that these two strangers were black; my wife and I are white. What is more interesting is that the ambience of this scene was saturated with the resounding message of the Don Imus story, coming down from every television: “Deep down, blacks and whites still don’t like each other.”

Whether it’s communicated casually by a slick shock-jock, indirectly by the extreme volume of media coverage given to this fiasco, or directly by the perpetual wound-salting of people like Al Sharpton, it’s loud and clear. I’m tired of it. I think most people are tired of it, and I think most people would like to see Sharpton and most of the major media channels fired along with Imus, who I feel got a bad rap. Sharpton suggested that Imus is guilty of racism, even though he didn’t intend it, drawing the analogy that if a man doesn’t mean to kill someone but does anyway, he is still guilty of murder.  

It would seem to me that a man like Imus, who has done things like broadcasting G.E. Patterson sermons, vocally supported Harold Ford Jr., and brought national attention to things like the Sean Bell murder trial and the Blind Boys of Alabama, in addition to more general humanitarian efforts like the Imus Ranch for children with cancer and raising huge sums of money for sickle cell anemia research, could be given the benefit of the doubt.

Nathan Raab

Memphis

The trouble with being at the top is that Don Imus feels that his success grants him the right to publicly kick minorities. He’s make these insulting comments, then apologizes, and, when the dust clears, will go right back to these evil ways. It is very clear that Imus will continue to use the public’s airwaves to spew his hate. 

It is about time that Imus & Co. feel a bit of wrath from minority groups, who were mugged regularly on this program. Imus’ insensitivity was magnified by his making his ugly comment on April 4th, when another racist ended the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is a pleasure to see the end of this bully’s broadcast career.

Leonard Blakely

Memphis

Have you listened to the rap music that floods the airwaves, with lyrics referring to black girls as “ho’s”? And then there are the black stand-up comics on cable TV doing the same thing. Yet, when Imus uses it on his program, the blacks want him fired.

Something is wrong here. The only mistake Imus made was appearing with the racist Sharpton on his radio show. The only persons he should have apologized to were the Rutgers basketball team.

Joe Mercer

Memphis