Mecklenburg County commissioner Parks Helms knows what you should eat for lunch. And how much you should spend. He is after, all Parks Helms, all-wise statesman and benefactor to all Creation. Listen to Helms spin the the idea of a four-percent county property tax hike in order to pay for an eight-percent increase in the county budget:
“You can buy a Chick-fil-A sandwich and a big cup of slaw for that if we get out of this meeting in time,” he said. “It may not apply to everybody but … we need to be thinking about it in those terms.”
No, no we do not, Parks, you smarmy little putz.
Instead we need to think about a county property tax hike in terms of Mecklenburg County taxing and spending itself out of control. About further pushing the county into the high-tax column, certainly in North Carolina and increasingly across the entire Southeast.
The county’s own performance report for 2006 flag’s the county’s addiction to property tax revenue. Mecklenburg already gets 57% of its revenue from the current property tax rate, far above the target of 51% percent or less.
That same county report also notes that Mecklenburg’s property tax bite out of household income is far above that of “comparable size North Carolina jurisdictions.” The county’s goal is 1.69 percent of household income. Mecklenburg is already 17 percent above that goal at 2.02 percent of household income — without a new tax hike.
And now you know why Parks wants to talk about chicken sammiches.
Mmmmm….sammiches………
