What is that? Charlotte Chamber president Bob Morgan pointing out the connection between high taxes and bad economics? Now we are getting somewhere, if in baby-steps.
Morgan is correctly smacking the General Assembly — Motto: To Loot, Rather Than Earn — for keeping North Carolinas’s top income tax-rate at a growth-stunting 8.25 percent, one of the highest such rates in the country. Morgan notes how that levy deters small business formation, which in turn is a key engine of economic growth and job creation. Yea! Yea! Go! Go!
But where was Morgan and the Chamber when the city of Charlotte raised the business privilege license fee last year? Where was the Chamber when Mecklenburg County rammed through an 11 percent property tax hike last year, and cynically gave a penny back this year? Where was Bob Morgan a few weeks ago when the city of Charlotte and City Manager-for-Life Pam Syfert absoluted lied to the taxpayers of Charlotte and said a 9 percent property tax hike was needed to pay for basic services? Hello? Anybody home?
Charlotte is facing its own tax crisis, one driven by run-away government spending. Anyone concerned with keeping the local economy humming, jobs plentiful, the city livable — you know, Chamber of Commerce stuff — might want to speak up when the local kleptocrats are afoot.
Otherwise people might think you are part of the problem.
