By Proud American
the_912_project on Twitter.com
The citizens of Allen County in Ohio are coming together in a local issue where two local Republican Commissioners have voted to increase sales taxes.
Concerned Citizens from Allen County, from all party affiliations, are coming together and blanketing neighborhoods with petitions, requesting that the people be permitted to vote on the issue of sales tax increases where a 7.69% increase will be added to the current sales tax. What the people are asking for is a chance for the people of Allen County to be able to vote on the issue. They only have until August 9th to get 5,000 signatures to force the issue to be put up for a vote by the residents of the County. Many opponents are voicing their concerns with any tax increase at a time of an economic recession.
It was also noted in an article on LimaOhio.com, that Commissioner Greg Sneary had introduced a proposal to free up as much as $3.9 million dollars without increasing taxes.
The fact is that all across America people are having to deal with this very issue as cities, counties, and states are struggling to find ways to balance their budgets. In many of such cases the citizens are not permitted to vote on whether they feel it is in the best interest of their communities to raise taxes. Over the past several years America’s economy was strong and the tax revenues were great. With a strong recession hanging over us and resulting reductions in tax revenues, politicians are struggling to figure out how to keep up with many social programs and needed services in their areas. What is sad is that they could have chosen to put money aside for in a rainy day fund rather than increasing their spending as tax revenues increased. If they had done this they wouldn’t be struggling to figure out what programs to cut and/or how to bring in more money to meet their budgets. The realities of that “Feel Good” effect are now gone and the tough decisions to reduce spending will eventually have to be made no matter how bad they want to put it off.
You can find out more about the petition efforts by visiting the following resources:
