kkCATS and city staff did their very best last night to scare Charlotte residents about the effects of repealing the half-cent transit tax. Of course, this involved running straight to property tax hikes as the only possible response to sales tax repeal — an outright lie. But let’s roll with that bogus notion.

City Manager-Until-June Pam Syfert decreed that running the current bus system, the South Blvd. rail line, and paying off debt would require a 20 percent hike in the city property tax rate. This, the city told us, would mean about $200 more per year for a median-value home of $200,000.

Alright. But what does the half-cent tax cost taxpayers? Turning to the NC Department of Revenue and John Locke Foundation numbers whiz Joe Coletti, the answer is not what CATS expects.

In 2006 the half-cent raised $68.7 million. The DoR reports the 2005 certified population of Mecklenburg County as 796,232. This means the tax raised about $86 per person.

Now, to Mayor Pat McCrory’s constant refrain about non-Meck residents paying part of the that total amount, let’s say that Mecklenburg taxpayers do not pay the whole $68.7 million. Let’s use Mayor Pat’s 70 percent number. That’s $48.1 million, or about $60 per Mecklenburg County resident.

Now, if we assume a household of four, that is $240 per household for the half-cent tax each year. The official scary property tax-hike number is $200 a year. See a problem here?

Many average Charlotte households would come out ahead under the official gloom-and-doom scenario. Wait, it gets better.

If you live outside the city, you save $60 per person and pay none of the city’s property tax hike. Talk about an incentive to change the current plan. Oh, and renters in the city? You save too!

Does CATS understand this? Do they understand that they’ve just told the flippin’ world that the current bus system, even without all of its excess costs squeezed out of it, which could amount to $20 million a year, and the tremendously over-budget South Blvd. light rail line are but a drop in the bucket for CATS overall transit plan? Where else could the money go?

Let’s say that again. CATS just admitted that the future costs of its 2030 transit plan will explode with the half-cent transit tax in place. Stop that plan in its tracks, right now, and even the city’s own worst case scenario is basically a break-even deal for many local taxpayers and actually saves money for many others. We then may go about planning a sane and affordable transit system for Char-Meck.

The repeal debate is effectively over. Already. CATS itself has made the case for repeal come this November. Call it a TKO.

They never knew what hit them.