I have long thought that the moral test of government is how it treats those in the “dawn of life” (children), “shadows of life” (the needy/sick), and “twilight of life” (the elderly). That is why I sent a balanced budget that fully funded our schools, did not create a larger budget problem for next year and provided additional relief for our lowest income workers. It also kept us on a path to be a healthy, thriving community.
I have been criticized relentlessly for recommending raising property taxes by $165 million, and yet, the Council found a different way to also raise property taxes by $140 million, by eliminating the Income Tax Offset Credit (ITOC). They realized, like I did, that we needed to raise taxes to meet the needs to help the county thrive.
Yet the Council approach is regressive, hitting homeowners with lower value homes harder, putting the entire burden on homeowners and leaving commercial property owners untouched. And those same commercial property owners have the lowest tax rate in the region, even lower than in Northern Virginia.
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Even though the Council raised property taxes, they did not raise enough revenue and so they had to use gimmicks and one-time maneuvers to find the additional funding. I have long lobbied for changes at the state level to allow a progressive income tax, but the Council has not supported my efforts to make it a system that didn’t create additional budget difficulties, which is what they have now done.
While the Council did not abandon our children, our struggling neighbors, or our vulnerable elderly, they could have and should have done more. Once again, they have missed an opportunity to provide our community with the schools and services we need and deserve. This means more will be left to our successors to resolve.
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Read the original article at mcgov