TAXES GOING UP

Wed Sep 03, 12:43:27 PM
Have you seen the plan? You know... THE PLAN! The plan where the Cortland legislators screwed us out of tax money. They started it the easy way, just told us it was going to be much worse so we would be happy when it turned out to be less. Still more than before though. Do they think we are stupid? Apparently so. It's always that way. They said last year the tax increase would be higher than the 20% it ended up being, as if they think we didn't know all along that it was going to be 20%. Same for this year. They started by floating the plan that would give the county a larger share of the sales tax and then 'compromised' by going for a smaller but still more than before share of the gold. They must think we are stupid. And they did this in an election year. Every Democrat voted for it and all but one Republican voted against it. Our John Steger voted against it. Now you know. I'll ask Betty Pitman how much of an increase we will have on our taxes and report back.

LINDA HARTSOCK AND PAUL SLOWEY OF THE BCD/IDA

Did you know that they get their money as part of the sales tax revenue? 2% of the sales tax collected goes to them for their budget. I knew this before but it was in the paper as part of the tax story and that reminded me of it. It helps to know this when you understand what the BCD/IDA does. In short they give away our property tax money in order to get the sales tax. That's what they did with Song Mountain and that's what they probably would have done with Flying J. Just so they would have a bigger budget. All that ends after this year because the officials in Cortland finally discovered it was illegal to do it. Now they will be funded directly from the legislature which 'may' mean they won't be so eager to give away our property taxes anymore. Don't count on that though. After all, they measure their success by how much of our money they give away, just like almost every other government agency. All in the name of keeping business in Cortland. As if Song Mountain could move away. Oh well, no sense in going over that again, just makes me angry.

I'm on a roll today, wonder what's next.