Retired teachers Robert and Gaye Thomasson justify a new Elbert County sales tax as follows:
“Elbert County does not have a sales tax, but our commissioners will ask for one in November. Their reasoning is that the Elbert County Road and Bridge Department needs the money to, you guessed it, repair and maintain Elbert’s woeful system of roads. Unfortunately, the board of county commissioners is the very group that has been shifting money out of the road and bridge department for other projects that caused gross deficiencies in the first place. In what can only be described as a move that demonstrates shortsightedness, Elbert’s commissioners say that if the tax increase passes, all of the money will be earmarked for road and bridge. Before you start calling us hypocrites, understand that if this money is put toward that department, there is no way to get it back into the general fund without breaking the law. Lord knows the road and bridge department is a deserving group, but it is irresponsible to put all of the money from a tax increase into a place where the money can’t be used when emergencies occur. We do have emergencies from time to time.
If I follow their logic, when the Board of County Commissioners shift money from road and bridge to other uses they’re “shortsighted” and they cause “gross deficiencies,” however, the Thomassons also think it would be “irresponsible” for a sales tax to be allocated entirely to a road and bridge fund. If not hypocrisy, it is at least a good example of Orwellian doublethink. No matter what the BOCC does, even if aligned with the Thomassons own preference, they still criticize the BOCC. This strangely parallels the pathological hatred the left maintains against President Bush: detached from all reality feedback, 100% critical, immune to persuasion.
Brooks Imperial, Kiowa