Darn tootin’.
Jim Puckett has it exactly right. Landing enough signatures to put the transit tax repeal on the ballot has finally made opposition to the Uptown crowd more than parlor game. More than a speedbump, even. The repeal question is a real brickwall for a continued tax-and-spend regime in Charlotte.
Moreover, it is a template that may be repeatable in other counties faced with wrongheaded policies and unresponsive local officials. Limited government activists around the state are no doubt cheered by the revolt kicked off in our 21st century Hornet’s Nest.
Now things get very interesting — especially with CATS’ drive to win Metro Transit Commission approval for its North line funding plan. CATS has to make that case in the harsh glare of a repeal campaign. And it just so happens the that CATS’ only funding route — local debt secured by property taxes — contradicts CATS’ argument that repeal will result in the use of property tax money for transit.
The basic problem with CATS’ $9 billion transit plan is that it is a $9 billion transit plan. Unless changed it will grow to gobble up hundreds of millions in tax dollars — no matter the source.
Update: Ryan Teague Beckwith alerts us to the sales tax repeal in Dare County in 2006. In that case, a one-percent levy for beach replenishment was repealed. That tax, however, was less than a year-old.
I think it is safe to say then that Dare was first to fight in 2006, but that Mecklenburg has taken it to a whole new level in 2007.
