Saturday, April 25, 2009

April 25, 2009 Tax Increases: The Tribune and Chamber Love 'Em

(OLD) BREAKING NEWS.

The Tribune actually wrote and published its own editorial! Yep. The April 15 editorial was apparently written in Morristown, Tennessee, instead of being copied out of some other newspaper.

The Tribune editorial supports the May 5 county sales tax increase referendum and is actually not a surprise at all. I predicted it was coming here. After all, the Tribune is FOR just about every local and state tax increase.

The only surprise is that someone at the Tribune actually wrote an editorial.

MORE (OLD) BREAKING NEWS.

The Chamber of Commerce is for the county sales tax increase. Surprise, surprise. Lynn Elkins, Chamber president, wrote a letter to the editor (of the Tribune) to let everyone know that the Chamber backs increasing the sales tax just as they did when the city started the sales tax increase push over a year ago.

POSTCARDS SUPPORT SALES TAX INCREASE.

Well, I've got three in a row now. See my predictions here. Postcards have been sent out supporting the county sales tax increase.

THREE HITS SO FAR: Editorial, Letters To the Editor, and Postcards.

DR. LYNCH WON'T SAY HOW ANY SALES TAX INCREASE MONEY "WOULD" BE SPENT. INSTEAD, HE TOSSES OUT WAYS THE SCHOOLS "COULD" SPEND THE MONEY

And in a most interesting front-page article on April 19, Director (of Schools) Dale Lynch listed a lot of ways that more sales tax money "could" be spent.

Let's see, it "could" be spent to help make payments on a new school building program OR

It "could" be spent on nurses, guidance counselors, and SRO's OR

It "could" fund Pre-K classrooms OR

It "could" buy math and science textbooks OR

It "could" buy 1225 computers OR

It "could" pay for re-roofing projects.

Lots and lots of "coulds."

The question, however, is not what "could" you do with more money. Everybody knows that you "could" do lots of different things and Dr. Lynch made that clear with his list of "coulds."

The real question is what "would" you do with more money--what is most important for education? What are the real spending priorities?

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