Posted on 04/18/2005 11:29:00 AM PDT by freepatriot32
Libertarian Ben Brandon was recently elected to the position of county executive in Dade County, Ga., running on a platform whose primary plank was a promise to eliminate school taxes for people aged 65 and over.
He is keeping his promise -- and that's just a start.
"As I was going around last year getting signatures to get on the ballot, I would ask people what was on their minds," Brandon explains. "The older people complained that their property taxes were too high. Many of them are living on fixed incomes and can't afford the taxes -- and most of their tax is for schools."
Brandon did his research, discovered that several other counties in the state have already removed senior citizens from the property tax rolls for school purposes, and promised to help out the older people in his community.
With this and Brandon's other promises (and qualifications) in mind, the voters of Dade County elected him to office with 66 percent of the runoff vote on Nov. 23, 2004, rejecting the Republican who was seeking the position. Brandon had received 33 percent in the regular election votes, less than the Republican's 40 percent but enough to beat the Democrat, who received 26 percent support.
It was the first partisan election any minor party had won in Georgia since 1968, when George Wallace's American Party carried the state in the presidential election.
But you can be sure the people of Dade County are pleased with their decision: Many of them will likely significantly lower tax bills in coming years.
"I discovered that if you took the senior citizens completely off the property tax rolls for schools, it would only cost the school system $128,000 per year," Brandon said. "Of course, there is an income limit. Those exempted from school taxes can't have earned income of more than $10,000 annually."
Although Brandon has done his part, it's not yet a done deal.
After being elected, Brandon contacted his state representative, Martin Scott, who drafted the legislation to exempt senior citizens from this part of their property taxes. The legislation was approved by the state Senate and House in March, and is expected soon to be signed by the governor.
After that, the final decision will return to the voters in Dade County, who will vote in a local referendum on the question in September, Brandon explained -- noting that he doesn't expect much opposition to the proposal.
Some people complained it's not fair to cut taxes for only one subset of the taxpaying public while leaving other people's taxes at a higher level. The assumption is that the people whose taxes will be cut benefited from the area's public schools when they had children in school, so they should continue paying taxes now.
This assumption is wrong, Brandon opined.
"At the time they had students in school, they were paying property taxes," he said. "At some point, you need to give people a break. And if you listen to the statists, there is no good time to cut taxes.
"The problem with education, with government schools, isn't that we tax too little, but that they spend too much. They just need to sharpen their pencils a little more at budget time and get more efficient, rather than continuing to come back to the well and asking taxpayers to pay more and more, without any accountability."
Brandon is also asking other county officials to consider prohibiting students from outside Dade County to attend the county's public schools -- unless they pay tuition.
"Our estimate is that about 10 percent of the students in Dade County don't live in the county," he said. "We spend a lot to educate kids who don't even live in this state. I want to make sure we're not educating students from other areas on this county's taxpayer money."
Brandon said he is "good friends with several members of the Dade County school board," and they're in favor of taking the senior citizens off the tax rolls -- especially seeing that they'll be able to recoup the lost revenue by requiring out-of-state (and out-of-county) students to pay tuition to attend school there.
"At least if the students' parents live in Georgia, they're paying the state income tax from which we get $4,000 per student, so their tuition would be $2,000 if they want to continue attending Dade County schools," Brandon said. "For those who live outside the state, the tuition would be $6,000 per year."
Besides school funding issues, Brandon has also begun cleaning house in the county's tax appraiser office -- a process that actually began before he was elected as county executive.
"Last year I discovered that about 80 percent of the tax bills that went out were incorrect, and that about 90 percent of those that were wrong were on the high side," he said. "It appears that the chief appraiser -- who resigned after I pointed this out -- had been pushing up the value of homes year after year" rather than allowing them to depreciate.
For about two years before he was elected, Brandon wrote a weekly column called the "North Georgia Libertarian" for the Dade County Sentinel newspaper. In May 2004 he wrote a column pointing out the problems with the appraiser's office, then left for a missions trip to Africa.
"When I returned from Tanzania 10 days later, I found out that the county commission had called for an audit of that office," Brandon said. "The next week the entire office resigned, right down to the secretary."
In January, after taking office, Brandon convinced the other county officials to hire a private firm to correct all of the county's tax appraiser errors -- just one more way he is trying to save money for the taxpayers.
"I'm promising to fix the tax digest so that when you get a tax bill, you have a good reason to believe it's actually right," he said. "And then we'll keep down spending so we can keep taxes down."
When Brandon was writing his "North Georgia Libertarian" column, he focused primarily on "the stupid things politicians do," he said.
So what does he write about, under the new title "The Commissioner's Corner," since he is now a politician?
Pretty much the same thing, actually.
"I can sometimes use it as a way to outmaneuver the Democrats on the commission," Brandon said, noting that there are three Democrats, one Republican and one Libertarian (himself) on the county commission. "If I want to do something that the Democrats will likely oppose, I'll write something about it and get public support before it goes to a vote," he said. "Usually, the Republican votes with me."
All these changes proposed or already enacted, and Brandon has been in office for only about four months on a four-year term.
What's next?
"Well, this year we're going to be under budget on expenses and over budget on revenue, so I'm hoping to put some money aside for an emergency fund, and then come up with some policies governing how that money is spent," Brandon said.
"Dade County has no financial policies governing spending. There are no guidelines for what constitutes emergency spending. In the past, if the commission wanted to spend money on something, they could just spend the money without considering whether it was an appropriate expenditure.
"I'm trying to change that."
Think strategic. Free a whole segment from a tax, they no longer care about it. Their voice won't be there to balance the relentless pressure to increase spending. Spending skyrockets. We are worse off than before. Where's the progress?
Rammer, the government should just go back to treating people like individuals when it comes to taxes. That would simplify a lot of stuff.
Government actions are being balanced closer to being paid for by those who use them. That is progress.
I agree, I was being sarcastic.
See my #36. What you described is not what's going on here.
"Libertarians would probably say the government has no business in marriage anyway. You don't need a license (government approval) to have children, why do you need one to get married?"
I don't get "...probably say..." ???
Is the answer similar for methamphetamines, "...probably..."
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