A recent article by the Independent suggested that if only Wake County would agree to increase the property tax rate, the county’s budget problems would disappear. Those of us of another philosophy would rather trim the fat from the budget before giving more to the hungry calf. That was John Hood‘s point, starved and then buried by the author. The bromide “Raise to Save” comes at a cost, as the Heartland Institute makes all too apparent in its article on the political requiem of Richard Morgan. Politicians that don’t follow through on their no-tax-hike pledges are eventually held accountable for their actions. When taxes rise, residents both see it and feel it, as hard-earned money is spirited away by the taxman. But when your money helps to “create” jobs and “promote” economic success in your area, sometimes it takes a little more to get you riled up. In this case, you can count on the Carolina Journal to point out the flaws in economic development, as Paul Chesser did in his story “On Milking A State’s ‘Cash Cow’.” The story is so illustrative of incentives-based economic development gone awry that the Heartland Institute used it in a piece on targeted tax incentives.
