Last week I was asked by Kyle Sisk to write up a guest post for his blog about the City of Columbus income tax increase. It was just posted up this morning, and you can go read it here: Walker Evans & Bill Todd on Issue 1 in Columbus, Ohio.
The income tax increase is something I’ve been on the fence about. No one likes paying more money for things, but at the same time, the best things in life aren’t free. I love the City of Columbus, and I’d like to continue to love it, so to keep it simple, that’s why I’m voting yes on Issue One.
But when I started thinking about this guest blog post opportunity, I didn’t want to just rehash the same old talking points that have already been beaten to death for the past few months. I could recite any of the sound bites or quotes or studies that anyone in the pro-increase camp has been using regularly… but that would just be phoning it in.
So instead I used this as an opportunity to talk about what I believe are some of the root problems behind why we even need an income tax at all. We didn’t have one prior to 1948. What’s changed in Columbus over the past 60 years, and why do we keep needing increases? Some people are quick to say that the current administration is mismanaging funds, or that this is a temporary problem with the recession, but income tax increases have been happening for six decades now. There’s much larger trends that are shaping this, and yeah… well… you can read my thoughts on them right over here.
“It does not take a mathematician to realize that providing speedy fire or police response times to 10,000 people living within one square mile is much easier and cheaper than providing those same response times to 10,000 people living spread out over ten square miles.”
That’s not true actually. You’d find that the cost of providing police/fire service in New York City to 10,000 people is indeed more expensive than doing so for 10,000 people in Columbus, even when spread over a larger area.
Certain things are more expensive but the biggest issue is salary. You need to pay a NYC policeman a lot more than a Columbus policeman in order to compensate for the much more expensive real estate.
Neither Walker nor Bill Todd got to the heart of the matter. The reason why we need a higher tax increase is because city employee, police and fire salaries/benefits have increased more aggressively than the average income of a Columbus resident.
It has nothing to do with the way the city has grown, its annexation or the mismanagement of city government.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether the salary/benefits packages are too lucrative in the first place. What can definitely be said is that city employees enjoy a pensions package which is nearly impossible to find in the private sector.
A Columbus to NYC comparison, eh?
I think that’s introducing an entirely different set of variables into the equation. I was trying to compare dense Columbus to non-dense Columbus, and to that point, I think I still have a fairly strong argument to make.
Do you have any data to provide to show how much those benefits have actually increased in the past 27 years? I’m sure the benefits for a city employee are greater than the private sector, but most private sector jobs also pay higher salaries job-to-job to their public sector counterparts.
Not that it’s not an issue worth considering… I just don’t think it’s ultimately the root of the problem.
See page 102 and 103 of the EAC report (available at http://www.columbus.gov) to compare police and fire salaries in a long list of cities.
It just seem to me that Issue 1 is a great way to add money to the state coffers while our state representatives rap themselves in the flag.
From Dennis Kusinich’s web site there’s 60′000 gulf war vets. Not all of them have GWS or were killed. Not all that are eligible will apply. But,for the sake of argument, say 25% of the 60,000 get $5000 each. Thats’ 75 mill. And if another 25% of 60,000 get $1000 each that’s 15 mill. That’s 90 mill. That leaves $110 mill to go to administrative fees and that black hole called the general fund.
By the way, I am a vet. And have worked for government for over 20 years. It’s just that I’ve seen politicians do this type of fandago before.
Rich, you’re talking about the wrong issue 1.
May be, But I feel better now.