Vote no to city tax increase in November
The City of Knoxville appears to have a spending problem. In order to spend even more, it must increase taxes. The last property tax hike was a whopping 40% increase. Now, Mayor Indya Kincannon is asking voters inside the city to increase the already hefty sales tax. The increase in the quite nearly 10% sales tax, one of the highest in the country, supposedly would be for adding “affordable housing,” sidewalks, greenways and parks. Keep in mind that the first thing Kincannon did after hiking property taxes was to cut back services in the form of keeping police officers from coming to traffic accidents unless someone is injured. Hiring more police officers and restoring that vital service to city taxpayers might be worth more on the sales tax. Presently, the city administration seems to enjoy dedicating every patch of scrub as a “greenway.”
The City of Knoxville does not operate a school system, health department, libraries, or services other than police and fire and residential garbage pickup. The city does, however, offer very generous defined pensions for its employees and finds any number of ways to throw away money. For instance, the city government proposes to spend $60 million of taxpayer dollars for a bridge that benefits the University of Tennessee. At any given time, there seems to be roughly a billion dollars’ worth of development occurring at UT which is largely funded through tuition costs and appropriations from the state and federal government. The people living inside the City of Knoxville are also county, state and federal taxpayers, and the case for funding a pedestrian bridge across the river has never been adequately made. The city sought a federal grant and loaded down their grant proposal with language to indicate the bridge would be diverse, racially equitable and other such language so as to appeal to the regents of the Biden administration. Surprise! Kamala Harris did not win the presidential election and the bridge proposal was denied by the Trump administration, which doesn’t much like woke bridge proposals. The city seems to be struggling to pay for the necessary repairs for the Gay Street bridge to be able to once again bear traffic. As of now, it, too, is a pedestrian bridge, albeit not by design.
Unfortunately, the city council seems less a legislative body than a rubber stamp for whatever the mayor decides to do on any given day. The number of leaders on the city council is exactly zero. The number of followers is precisely eight, coincidentally, the entire sum of the total membership minus one. The one would be Amelia Parker, a self-described Democratic Socialist, who dissents from the far, far left.
Like many other cities run by leftist Democrats and Democratic Socialists, the city government does its best to be woke and adopt a tax-and-spend philosophy that does little to improve the lives of the people paying the freight. There seems to be increasing pressure for politicians in cities to act as if they are Santa Claus and give away things. Zohran Mamdani is a young and proudly socialist candidate running for mayor of New York City, who, if possible, is proposing to run New York City straight into the ground. Mamdani proposes to refit New York City’s school buildings with “renewable energy infrastructure,” which would cost $3.27 billion over ten years. Mamdani wants to open and run city-owned grocery stores and provide free transportation for people.
Mamdani’s proposals would dramatically increase the size of government and, of course, taxes – all in the name of “affordability.” The question becomes affordable for who exactly? For a city, state or country to function properly, there must be a tax base to provide funding. When the recipients of government “freebies” becomes greater than those paying to provide them, a big problem occurs. The roof becomes too heavy to support and collapses on the house. Yet the specialists, planners and wokesters never find a penny of fraud or waste, unless it is to fund law enforcement or the military. They all follow the wisdom of that old saying that the best tax is one that someone else pays while you derive the benefit. That statement is the core of their philosophy for everything they do propose.
As housing costs continue to rise and the government’s response is to raise taxes, folks are catching it from both ends. Raising property taxes increases both rent AND mortgages. Kincannon and the council raised property taxes 40% the last time and are back to raise the sales tax now because they can’t manage the city government. When was the last time you heard a single member of the city council describe something other than law enforcement as a waste of taxpayer dollars? When was the last time you heard a member of the Knoxville City Council say we would like to do it but can’t afford it and can’t keep raising taxes? The last member I heard say that was Carlene Malone, and that has been a long time ago.
People have been leaving New York City in droves and should Zohran Mamdani be elected this November, even more people will leave and take their money with them. When the “haves” have departed, it leaves only the “have-nots” and nobody to pay for the freebies, which are NOT free after all.
The City of Knoxville is finally having to face the music by having candidates for the council run inside the districts they are supposed to represent instead of running city-wide. That is a BIG improvement to have council members who actually represent the people of their district instead of the mayor. With Kincannon’s proposed sales tax increase on the ballot this November, the people of Knoxville have good reason to come out and vote. It also gives candidates for the city council ample opportunity to state whether or not they favor the proposed sales tax increase. In fact, it is an opportunity for Knoxvillians to ask candidates running for city council to clearly state whether or not they would support continuing the tax-and-spend policy of the last twelve years. The people have a right to know where their elected representatives stand, and at some point, the city government can’t keep increasing its costs while doing less and less, all while spending more and more. The City of Knoxville, under Madeline Rogero and Indya Kincannon, has adopted an attitude of continually spending more and more and accomplishing less and less. There has been no voice of reason on the city council, nor has there been any council member to speak on behalf of the people who pay the bills. The advocates on the council have all been for those who soak up taxpayer dollars and pay little to keep the government running. Completely absent from the conversation are council people who urge economy or wish to eliminate waste. We need council members who will question the wisdom of paying $1.7 million for an alleged piece of art that looks like a melted mushroom. Should the City of Knoxville be in the art business in the first place when we have more pressing needs? Yes, there are a lot of people who believe it would have been better to spend the $1.7 million to help repair the Gay Street bridge to handle traffic issues than to erect the melted mushroom downtown. Unfortunately, none of them occupy a seat on the city council.
The people of Knoxville need to he heard and make your own viewpoint heard. Now that city council members must answer to the people they supposedly represent, it is long past time for the city’s legislative body to consider some economies and spending within its means. Even the taxpayers do not have bottomless pockets. Knox County has not raised property taxes since 1999, while the City of Knoxville has raised them constantly.
There is a powerful argument waiting to be made to the people of Knoxville, and hopefully, the candidates running for city council this year will make it.
