On Local Taxation
To the editor:
Surprising no one, our Fayette County Judge and almost all the commissioners (Thank you Mr. McBroom for being the one dissenting voice) elected for the 6th year in a row to raise the property tax of their neighbors to the max degree possible without triggering an election thereby carefully disallowing citizens to have their voices heard. I would remind us all that this court is lead by a man who campaigned on the promise to “keep taxes low” and who boasted recently in the FCR that “he was proud they have reduced the tax rate every year he was in office.” When he raised actual property tax to the max degree. He has said publicly “taxation is like sheering the sheep; quit before the blood runs.” . . Well, Judge, you haven’t kept your word… and we sheep have kept our receipts. But instead of vituperating Max-Tax-Mueller (who deserves heaps of ridicule and scorn), I would like instead to praise a couple of local men and blame the rest of us.
William Bernsen and Jeff Parker are two citizens in the county who have faithfully watched the Commissioner’s Court proceedings and spread the word about the radical lack of fiscal conservatism in the court. These two men deserve credit and gratitude from the rest of us who lack the time or talent or long-suffering to engage in the same maddening work. Watching the exercise of tyranny from our elected neighbors is an extremely difficult thing to endure. Watching them vote themselves raise after raise every year by doling out raise after raise to our property taxes is enough to drive a good man crazy. William and Jeff have kept going, kept speaking, kept teaching the rest of us. To these men I say: many thanks for watching and warning us. Please keep it up.
And to the rest of us (myself included) I would ask on the heels of America’s 250th birthday…can we esteem ourselves true sons of the Founding Fathers when we passively and quietly allow such unchecked, unaccountable, unbelievable taxation on our property by our local elected officials? The War for our nation’s Independence took place over the principles of unjust taxation not the amount of taxation. And the principles they fought for were biblical principles. Jesus ordered the world to Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are God’s.” The concept that people do not own their property but merely rent it from the government by paying for an annual “permission to own” license is the most un-Christian and un-American notion plaguing our country, and our county, today. Shame on the previous generation that allowed property to be taxed… and shame on us for letting this continue to happen.
This sort of thing always happens when we don’t trust God to meet our needs but instead trust the government. God told us to demonstrate our trust in His provision by yielding ten percent of our income to Him. The Government demands so much more because they think they are God. Property rights are inalienable rights bestowed upon man by his Creator. God commands “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife…” (Ex. 20:17). We don’t covet either because these things belong to our neighbor. Tax what is yielded on the property? Sure. Tax the ownership itself? Not without violating the will and word of Almighty God. We need to repent here.
Perhaps we should all pour a coffee this morning and dwell on an interesting fact: Our property taxation is run, not by the fools in Washington who cannot tell the difference between a boy and a girl. But by men that live next door to us here in Fayette County. They are our neighbors. And they are consistently robbing us of the inalienable rights of liberty and property. I wonder how long the real men who signed the declaration and framed the constitution would have born up under such tyranny? I wonder what they would have done to challenge evil like this? I wonder what Sam Adams would have said to Max-Tax Dan Mueller? I wonder what it says about us that we have let it all happen without so much as a peep. Again I say, shame on us. In the Name of Christ, we must require better of our elected officials. They have proved they do not listen and do not heed the will of the people. We need to speak differently…let the reader understand.