Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Oct. 16, 1969, edition 1 / Page 2
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EDITORIALS Never Forget That These Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man , ■ _ And tie May Be Wrong Sales Tax, Si! It is generally safe in North Carolina to be for anything the Raleigh News an4 Observer is against, which is a good place to belgin the listing of reas on’s for favoring the county-city sales tax that is to be voted upon on Novem ber 4th. But there are other reasons, less bil ious, perhaps more equitable and cer tainly more pertinent than simply op ' posing The Daniels’ family’s Trojan horse. It is alleged by some who refuse to look that a sales tax — aiiiy sales tax — is a tax on poverty, whereas an ad val orem tax is automatically a tax upon the affluent. The empty-headedness of any such hypothesis even ought to occur to the vacuum domes who peck out the News and Observer’s weak cup of tea. One cannot tax poverty -for the sim plest reason of all; that people without funds cannot pay taxes. Something from nothing is refuted by laws of physics as well as finance. . ' All taxes are consumer taxes. The user of any product or any service is the payer of every tax, no matter where along the production, line that tax may _.be collected.__ If the> farmer’ss landi is more 'highly taxed he has to get more for his produce and the house wife that finally puts that produce on the family table has to pay that distant ad val orem tax. N The excise tax put oil whisky made in Kentucky is not paid by the distiller. He merely collects it for the govern ment. The sipper. of a highball in Pink Hill really pays the tax. So having accepted the irrefutable that all taxes are consumer taxes let nsf move to the next order of business. tax the things one family uses and not tax the things another family uses? These, too, are questions that ans wer themselves. The fairest tax is the tax that is collected on all products, and from all users in the exact same ratio. A heavy 'tax on an empty"building or an unused acre of land is said by the News and Observer to be a more fair tax than a small tax on sales of items in general use by us all. We all bene fit from government and we should all be made aware of the cost of govern ment and the sales tax does this more effectively than any other. Quantity or Quality? A polite but pointed debate is going on in England on the issue of Elite Vs. Egalitarian education, or to put it' more in the North Carolina context: Quality Vs. Quantity education. Until socialism grabbed the British reins at the end of World War Two the British had what they now refer to as an “elitist” school system. Under this system state supported schools rigidly separated) students at about the age of 12 to 13, giving numerous aptitude tests and dividing the studients on. that basis. Those who had the aptitudes forjngli er education were assigned to college preparatory courses and those lacking such aptitudes were assigned to voca tional schools. The socialists changed all of this, or at least attempted to change it by exposing every student to college preparatory This is the basic and it has clogged men, and 12 colored men and the aim of the game Is to see how evenly, with the aid of this Episcopal money, thoee 12 colored men can be spread among the 185 white men, and then when the best possible mathematical mix is ob tained, reverse the procedure and with more of this Episcopal tithe try to ex tricate the colored men from the white and get them safely bach to home base. The second phase of this game is open ing this month in Durham, where a col ored boy with a sharp eye for white bucks is opening something called “The Malcolm X University.” {The 1969 ses sion of the North Carolina General As sembly authorized any congregation in a specific location of as many as four people as an automatic “university,” so this academic hurdle is safely hurdled.) This Malcolm X University is going to matriculate late in October with an “estimated enrollment” of 35 students, and $45,000 of this Episcopal money. It will also have a staff of “estimated at around” 12. This “staff’ is not accustomed to mak ing the scholastic scene on that thin slice of the white bread, so it is expect ed that further tithing by the Episcopal ians will be required if Malcom X Uni versity is to survive beyond the first pay" period. Let it be remembered that it was from Durham that six smart young colored boys left to go to New York where they liberated over $1.5 million of the taxpayers’ war-on-poverty dollars in a nine-month period. These kids who have grown up around Durham, watching the whites liberate the Duke Endowment and occasional Methodist donations have learned a thing or two about putting loose change in circulation. / And when the classes at Malcolm X University are filled and the. pockets of pious Episcopalians have been emp tied the game, it is to be presumed, will come to a grinding, screeching halt. Is there anyone for tennis? ed in the United States. There numer ous aptitude tests are given and men and women are assigned to schools and later to work for which their ability is best shited. Today college campuses and to a less er degree high school classes are dog ged with a large per cent of non-stu dents who have remained in school sim ply to avoid being subject to the brutal inequities of what is laughingly called the “selective service system”. When and if this stupid: and unfair system is ended and when educators begin doing with students what they have had students do in examinations — that is, putting square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes the lag jam in education will melt away suddenly and our nation will find it self more overbuilt in the education field than it is in fried chicken, ham burgeratands and filling stations. iUNTY JOURNAL an even more vital importance in the long-range future. This decision is basically whether to move in; a'different direction to obtain, the money needed for local governmen tal sendees. For as long as we jbave had local governments in these ' United States the ad valorem tax has been the backbone of local fiscal affairs. It still is. It was adequate so long as the local services were few and inexpensive. To day with people demanding more local services the tax on land, buildings and other personal property is not adequate,, and: it never was fair. In the first instance it is impossible to arrive at an absolutely fair formula for estimating the value of different pieces of land, buildings and’ personal property. So long as the ad valorem tax; bite was relatively small the demands for equity in valuation were extremely, few and could be handled in one sitting: , of the board o fcommissioners each year as a Board of Equalization and Re view. 'But the resistance to inevitable inequities in this area increases in direct ratio to the tax rate, and in recent years there has been nothing but increases in tax rates and in tax listed valuations. When local government was bom in this new world its services consisted of a county sheriff, who doubled as tax collector, a county court generally pre sided1 over by a person of some sub stance who served for little or no pay. If the sheriff had a difficult problem he deputized a helper or two and the judge served both as prosecutor, private de fender, jury and judge. \ » — Then “progress” arrived on the scene and where it had taken a tiny levy a gainst property owners to support the early services of government the cost began heading up and it’s still increas ing. Roads, schools, welfare departments, alth departments, libraries, police, wardens, sewers, paved roads, jim drainage systems', water systems, creation programs, mosquito controls, rat controls and even in some communi ties such as Kinston, Christmas decora tions for certain fayored shopping areas. These combined to represent huge numbers of public workers, expensive buildings to house them and ever ex panding reasons why each of these many “vital” areas of government has to have more personnel and, naturally, more money. Of course officials could keep on rais ing either the valuation or the tax rate and gouge a little more out of this same sore spot on the taxpayers’ ana now is to find a
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Oct. 16, 1969, edition 1
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