Mueller and the Max Tax
To the Editor:
In last Tuesday’s edition of the FCR, current County Judge Dan Mueller said the following: “I am also proud that we have been working to keep our county tax rate low…in fact we have lowered the county’s tax rate every year that I have been in office.” I would like to remind Judge Mueller and Fayette County residents of a few facts concerning the Judge’s history with taxing his neighbors.
The judge and the commissioners court have raised actual property taxes to the MAX, every year of his term. True, they have “cut the tax rate” but with the rising property tax valuations it has been a bureaucrat’s dream. The appraisal district gets to pass the buck saying “we don’t set the actual tax rate just the valuation. So go talk to the commissioner’s court.” The judge then gets his calculator and finds the magic number that raises his neighbor’s property tax as much as possible without triggering an election”… and then STILL boast in the paper that he has been working to keep tax rates low. His statement is half true…but as the man said “a half truth told as a whole truth is a whole lie.” Proud? Judge Mueller should be ashamed and should apologize publicly. Judge, your words are an intentional deception and we see right through them. The hubris you manifest by following your governing actions with such bloviation is truly breathtaking.
I would also like to remind our neighbors as we look for a replacement for the Judge, that while in office he favorably quoted a tyrant saying “taxation is like sheering sheep… you quit before the blood runs.” Which means he has viewed us all, not as neighbors to be served by those in office, but, rather, as sheep to be shorn. So while he disregarded his campaign promise to “keep taxes low,” he held manfully to his desire to sheer his sheep-neighbors for all the law would allow. I’m no bigstate democrat and never will vote for one. But for the love of God and Country, WHEN will Fayette County residents hold local Republican officials to their word? They have NOT been conservative nor have they earned our vote. What’s more, if politicians like Judge Mueller lived as contemporaries of our founding fathers, he would have found himself tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. Alas, where have all the good men gone?
Property taxation is an immoral tax because it robs a man of his property. A man’s property is his inheritance from the LORD which means that no person or government has the right to covet his neighbor’s house, or tax it, or take it. Even in the Bible when Kings were divinely appointed and anointed, they were not permitted to tax or take a man’s property (see 1Kings 21:1-4). Taxation on production? Yes, with limits. Taxation on property? Never in life.
Judge Mueller, the commissioner’s court, and the merry thieves down at the appraisal district have all been in league together to maximize this immoral taxation against their neighbors. The system favors them because, when a resident complains, each entity can blame the other. This is done not by Washington D.C. skeezballs. Not Austinite Liberals. It has been our local Fayette County neighbors, masquerading as conservative Republicans, that have been actively taking inalienable rights from us. In the Name of Christ, let’s do better when we pick a replacement.
I do not doubt that Judge Mueller has some good intentions. But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We need to judge the Judge on his public service record which maxed our taxes every year… ”Max Tax” should have been his campaign slogan. Lets not buy the deceptive words he used to mask that record so that we would all think better of him. If he repents publicly then I will think the world of him…but when he boasts of his taxation record instead of repenting over it, he deserves all the scorn a free American can heap upon him.
Will Martin La Grange