Oops. I almost forgot that my colleague Cindi Scoppe’s column today promised that you could find, right here on my blog, the item that the anti-tax folks were circulating about her. Here it is, as e-mailed to her (be sure not to miss the real knee-slapper about how these folks "have not noticed her complaining about
the unmentioned tax
on the poor, the lottery."):
Chairman’s
Opinion –
February 1, 2006The hypocritical scoop on Scoppe
The battle to secure and preserve true home ownership for the citizens of South Carolina has proven itself to be long, and hard.
My ten year concern over this matter – based first on the simple concept that we should not have to “rent” our homes from government – has grown far beyond my original basis of conviction. Because property taxes levied collectively upon South Carolina’s homes have virtually doubled within three years, my initial point of principle now pales in comparison to the financial hardships that have surmounted tens of thousands of homeowners in South Carolina.
Quite honestly, this effort illustrates the struggle of South Carolina’s lawmakers as they continuously try to balance the will and voting ramifications of their districts against the campaign-funding lobbyists and special interests.
The latter-mentioned forces are more than enough to place the underfunded citizens groups at a disadvantage. But there is another force with which we must also do battle: the liberal news media.
From Greenville to Charleston to Florence to Aiken, they aid and abet the effort to maintain the property tax status quo. Borne in the left-leaning colleges of journalism and promulgating their views of a “correct society” for South Carolina, they spin their webs to protect their beloved big government bureaucracies.
Out of this journalistic jungle stands one above the others. Her one woman crusade against real home ownership has been a sight to behold. She is none other than that editorialist extraordinaire of The State newspaper, Cindi Scoppe.
Were her idea of journalistic achievement the infuriation of the masses, she should cautiously be satisfied with self.
It is one thing to share an opinion in this land of (diminishing) freedoms, but to compromise one’s viewpoints with innate, blatant hypocrisy is an exercise in self relegation.
One of the most often used mantras of those who oppose a (in this case revenue neutral) tax swap is the argument that the poor will suffer disproportionately. Rolling down the grocery tax was a tactic of equalization that negated that argument. Habitually leaving that component out of the equation, perhaps Ms. Scoppe should look to the idea’s point of origin – the citizens group that formulated what became that unmentionable touchstone, Senate Bill 880.
Relying on reports from liberal-minded and left-leaning think tanks is another sure way to set up oneself for compromise. To begin with, the reports from her revered Holly Ulbrich, self-proclaimed tax expert and writer of tax papers that are swallowed as gospel by bureaucrats alike, are nowhere guaranteed to be entirely rock solid.
Case in point is the fact that Ms. Ulbrich has of late had a somewhat difficult time defending some of her stances when challenged by certain, knowledgeable citizens. More revealing, Ulbrich’s statements are made as a member of the Strom Thurmond Institute. We have recently learned that just because she states opinion, that is not necessarily the majority opinion within The Institute. However, based on public delivery, one would never guess, would they? Lesson for Cindi – don’t hang on Holly’s every word. Her years of working within bureaucracy might just have skewed her vision.
While seizing upon such data as included in the Miley Report, she did get one thing right, and subsequently proved one of our long thought contentions. Such reports, sponsored by those like the SC Chamber of Commerce, habitually come out in favor of that group’s prior stances. No different here.
Amongst all Ms. Scoppe’s favorite reports and studies, the McCall Study is absent. It shows, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and The Census which includes (southeastern) average family spending data, a household with a property tax bill of $499 (BLS average) with income of $19,187 would have a 2.4% advantage gain, while a household with a property tax bill of $1,618 and income of $62, 986 would have a lesser percentage gain of 2.2%. Comparing the latter income to the median South Carolina household income, so much for the “rich” advantage.
I am not aware of Ms. Scoppe railing on behalf of the lower class against higher gas prices. Nor the increased cost in food, clothing, medicine, utilities, or especially, property taxes on the poor. I have not noticed her complaining about the unmentioned tax on the poor, the lottery. Disagree on that one? Then just look at who buys the most tickets of chance (while heaven forbid, subsidizing scholarships for the children of the wealthy).
And I could mention several more points, but space doesn’t allow.
However, we must visit the street of Ms. Scoppe’s personal residence. According to public county tax records, Ms. Scoppe is receiving a chunk of tax relief herself. In addition to her state tax relief of $460, she gets an additional $869 tax credit. Being true to her stated beliefs, maybe she returns the $869 to the county, or gives it to the poor.
For by what means does she get the $869 worth of relief? According to her tax bill – it is from none other than that dreaded tax on the poor – an additional one cent sales tax, by local option.
Being the defender of the lower class that she is, how can she abide this travesty? Why, this is 50 percent of the amount she has determined will send the poor over the edge, and it did not even roll down the grocery tax in the county by one cent to make the sixth cent less regressive! Even worse, it did nothing toward permanent, constitutional removal of property tax from their homes. In the words of the Hindenburg reporter, “where is the humanity?”
Did she editorialize zealously against the local option sales tax before its imposition? I haven’t had the time to research that, but if not, only one word applies: shame.
Lastly, if permanent and meaningful property tax reform fails, we know exactly who to blame. Should the status quo remain intact, and the trends of the property tax cancer continue to grow, thousands upon thousands of hard working South Carolinians will be forced from their homes.
So perhaps not that far in the future, the newly homeless can occupy all the grand school buildings (although those three story atriums relate more to HVAC capacity than to people capacity). Some might settle for the plush offices of the county and city councils and their thousands of bureaucratic peripherals. By then the Rutledge Building will be antiquated and abandoned – having been replaced with forty nine (guess why) stories named the Tenenbaum Tower of Education) – so there is another option.
Fling open your eight foot high office doors, Association of Counties, SC Municipal Association, and Chambers of Commerce all across the state. Your new residents can enjoy their new digs all the while thanking you for forcing them to move in with you.
And Ms. Scoppe, hope you have plenty of room down at The State. Since the newspaper industry will still be profiting from its sweetheart sales tax exemptions, we know you’ll overlook the inconvenience.
Dan Harvell
Related Posts
From 1989 to 2000..
* Average compounded growth in family incomes in South Carolina = 1.9%.
* Average compounded growth in propertry taxes = 4.5%
* Average compounded growth in government revenues = 5.2%
– Source: SC Statistical Abstract
From 2000 to 2005, property taxes doubled again.
From 1989 to 2000,
* My pants length increased by one inch.
* I grew two inches taller.
Therefore, I doubled in height. From 2000 to 2005, I doubled in height again.
I doubt any amount of extra expenditures on education would help Mathemagician.
I guess I’m having a hard time understanding what’s wrong with the above email. Ms. Ross-Scoppe’s editorial today focused more on her alleged “stalkers” than on the merits of property tax relief. My question to her is “How much more money would you be willing to pay to fund all of the social and economic programs that you are so sure will turn South Carolina into a thriving economy of above average students and zero poverty?”
Ms. Ross-Scoppe’s screed against taxpayers who are concerned about the wasteful government spending that goes on here attempts to portray anyone who questions the rapid increase in property taxes as being selfish. Perhaps if we residents saw VALUE for our tax dollar and EQUITY in the redistribution of wealth that the present system provides, there would be less complaining. But Cindi has the inate ability to be exceedingly generous with OPM – OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
We never get to hear the answer to the question: “How much more money will it take to fix the problem?” When someone shows me a dollar-for-dollar benefit to throwing more money at poor school districts, maybe I’ll get on that bandwagon. As it is, I’d rather see my local district (Richland 2) stop wasting money on needless items. Technology spending far exceeds the benefits. Dozens of “smartboards” (at $10K apiece) sit unused in classrooms… the school board just voted to spend $88K to put all their minutes and documents online, Steve Hefner just got a big raise to $147K plus a $700 month car allowance plus a 12% annuity… and nobody blinks and eye. I’ll buy into Ms. Ross-Scoppe’s ideas when I see her make as much effort to identify and criticize wasteful spending in our schools as she does on trying to take more money out of my pocket.
Steve, you nailed it.
If the leftists who keep crying that “More money!” is the answer to every problem really know how much it would take to fix things, whyh do they keep coming back every month for another increase. Just tell us the amount and let’s debate raising taxes to that maximum, right now.
Oops. I inadvertantly left my computer on this website while I was out for lunch, and the fire department came because they heard Lee’s tax whining through the speakers and thought it was a smoke alarm.
No worries, though. Firefighting is free.
You mean you mama’s computer.
*&#in’ typepad. Let me try this again (apologies if this is a double post).
It’s tax time, and I have a practical question. I can deduct my property taxes on my federal income tax return. It’s a big help.
Will I be able to do that with the sales taxes that are supposed to replace the property tax?
Keeping a tax so because you can deduct a small portion of it from another tax is not very smart. You can achieve the same federal tax savings by investing the property tax reduction in a 401-k or IRA.
In order to prevent the federal government from collecting more taxes, the federal tax code needs to be reformed as well.
A couple of days ago, Lee and I had a disagreement over financial management. He contends that the state budget could be adequately funded with a 5% sales tax. The following is taken from official sources: the U. S. Census Bureau population and per capita income estimates for 2004 and Governor Sanford’s proposed FY 2006-2007 budget estimates submitted to the Legislature.
The 2004 estimated population for SC was 4,255,083; per capital estimated income for the same year was $ 27,172. Multiply the two and you get per capita income of $ 115,619,115,276. Considering that the national average is that 70% of gross income is consumed, and taxing all consumption at 5%, the yield to the state would be $ 4,046,669,035. The Governor’s proposed budget for the upcoming year is a “spending limit” of $ 5,930,205,345. Given the Governor’s tight-fistedness, we are still left with a gap of almost $ 2 billion. I think that’s a lot of trimming to get down to the 5% level.
In addition to the hoot about the lottery, I was also struck — but not as amused — by the assertion that “we must visit the street of Ms. Scoppe’s personal residence.”
Oh, really? You must? What’s with these people? I guess they’re just proving Cindi’s point — that to them, everything is personal, and they can’t conceive of anyone thinking in terms of the greater good.
KC, if you qualify for the AMT, or Alternative Minimum Tax, it won’t matter what deductions you may have had. Each year, this program is set up to snare more and more taxpayers.
Brad, take a look at Michele Malkin’s latest article on the over $1 Billion dollars in government junkets, which I am sure the attendees will swear are for the “greater good”. I don’t have the link handy but it is worth a read. I think I am open minded about taxes that can be proved to be sorely needed. For example, I like the idea of the I-73 toll road, where the toll is really a just in time tax. If the waste is taken out of government spending, nearly all taxes could be reduced.
There are several interesting issues here:
I’ll take off my conservative ideologue hat and don my economic analysis beanie with twirling propeller for what follows.
Regarding 1. — It’s difficult to attack fairly someone’s motivations because it’s hard to be sure of what they are. That doesn’t mean that personal attacks are not effective; Dan Harvell’s attack on Cindi Scoppe’s motivations is in one sense ludicrous since he’s not fully researched her writings, but his attack is not fair. His organization’s influence will remain marginal because they are absolutist abolitionists. Perhaps Cindi can take solace in that, but she’s probably worried about the tax-protesters driving by and seeing an un-raked yard and peeling paint. I often argue for policies that are personally disadvantageous, but that’s because I’m either really fair or a retard. The objective question is how we can raise needed revenues efficiently.
Regarding 2 — We pay a slew of different non-federal taxes, most of which are levied at the state level.
Regarding 3, I mentioned some of the special interests above. Dan Harvell’s group is another, as are educators, businesses in general, public policy groups, state agencies, local governments, the press, and all of us. Elected politicians walk a tightrope with special interests tugging on one side and disorganized voters screaming on the other. Each wants to pay less and get more.
Regarding 4 – this is the driver, what is spent, because the spending has to be funded somehow. This is the area where waste enters the discussion too. But this should also drive the discussion of who levies the taxes, at which level they should be funded. In replacing a portion of property taxes with the sales tax, we’re losing sight of accountability.
There’s a pragmatic view of taxes that I think The State’s editorial board attempts, and that is to optimize the tax take fairly. Most of us don’t know what “fairly” really means, and it appears that most who comment here are of the opinion that the total take is too high. I don’t think that most commenters are aware of all the bites taken — the full complement or array of taxes — and how the expenditures are allocated. I sure don’t. Do I know that SC tax burden overall is lower on average? Yup. But I also realize that the big reason for that is the lower wage base in the state. That probably means that folks who earn at or above the national median income level are getting taxed out the wazoo. So that’s the conundrum that we’re wrestling with – the poor just aren’t doing their part and those not poor are puzzled at how to get them earning more. Thus the emphasis on education, attracting better jobs, improving pre-natal care, und so weiter.
Here’s the link to the Malkin article on junkets. (Didn’t someone just write about accountability and the four ways one can spend money?)
KC, – you can deduct property taxes and either state sales taxes or state income taxes, but not both. With the shift from property to sales tax, you are porked because you’ll lose the part of the property tax deduction that goes to sales tax and still find it better to deduct the income tax. The sales tax deduction really only works for states without an income tax. I suggest that you download the theme from “Deliverance” and play it often.
(I guess I should suggest the theme from “Brokeback Mountain,” but I’m not sure if it has a theme song. I haven’t seen it and don’t intend to because I don’t like sad movies; I heard that everybody in Brokeback gets it in the end…)
Mike C. – The Malkin article is an eye opener. With the focus on property taxes and sales taxes, it is easy to overlook the entire spectrum of peripheral taxes that are not called taxes. A few: Hunting, fishing, boat registration, boat “motor” registration, passport fees, drivers license renewal, park entry fees, internet phone charges, business licenses, and on and on. While we pay general income tax and property and sales taxes, most of us forget that the governments at all levels impose these additional taxes on “our” freedoms and properties. After all, we already own the parks and lakes. There is a bill in play right now to begin “licensing” ATVs. The money grab continues, what next, license plates on all golf carts? The government appetite for more funds is insatiable. Now let’s all read the Malkin piece to reinforce how it is spent.
I don’t see even $3 BILLION of legitimate expenses in the state budget, so a 5% sales tax (just to pick a number for a starting point) is probably more revenue than is necessary.
John Wrisley has a good article about why it is wrong to delve into Ms. Scoppe’s person tax deductions, when she is unable to rationally argue her position for higher taxes.
http://www.wrisley.com/stalking_scoppe.htm
Brad, this has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but – in view of Arial’s cartoon this morning, you folks at The State might want to check out this link, which, if accurate, may be saying that the troublesome cartoons are originally of Muslim origin.
Herb:
We knew it would come to this.
The cause? You knew it all along.
Mike, that is a riot. Actually, I am a Packer fan, of sorts, especially since Gado started playing. As Capital A will tell you, I like the underdog.
The law has required that SC income taxes be indexed for inflation, but most years, the legislature has “temporarily suspended” that, with the effect that most people of any income are in the top brackets.
As mentioned above, the AMT, originally affecting 1,800 taxpayers, now applies to over 40,000,000.
"Packer fan?" Packer fan?!?!?!
Those are the sort of infidels who could cause me to take to the streets and start torching stuff. The only thing worse than the Packers would be the Great Satan himself, Joe Namath.
Of course, as this link will explain (it’s all too painful to repeat), I haven’t paid attention to the Packers or anything else having to do with football since the Great Calamity of 1969. You say, it’s time to move on? Well, let me tell you this, you imperialist Western crusader, we fanatics have long memories. To me, the Packers are still Bart Starr and his contemporary partners in crime.
Maybe I’ll get over it someday. I mean, as long as the Colts are still there in Baltimore, I can always go back to them, right?
The Dallas Morning News published an editorial on the warrantless eavesdropping.
While I disagree with most of it — they make a big deal of AG Gonzales’ evasiveness when the senators were were wearing makeup (i.e., it was an open hearing televised worldwide) — what’s more interesting is that the editorial board has a weblog where members proceeded to discuss the editorial (and other matters).
Yep, Packer fan. First of all, my childhood hero, Donny Anderson at Texas Tech, went to play for the Packers (didn’t do a whole lot, I understand, but by that time, I was in college, and eventually on my way to Europe — I lost track of football). Secondly, my wife and I honeymooned in Door County, Wisconsin. Nice place. Thirdly, Wisconsin reminds me of Germany — strange, in a way, since I hate the taste of beer (may Mike forgive me — but do atheists forgive?). But I do like cheese?
And last of all, I know a lot of Ben Lippen people, and Gado went to high school at Ben Lippen.
So there, yes, Packer fan. But I probably couldn’t name ten players on the team. Anyway, raising a son in Europe, I had to get into soccer, so my real team, or rather my son’s, became Bayern Munich.
Anyone who thinks that Michelle Malkin is a respectable source needs to get their tinfoil hat tuned up.
Michelle’s Greatest Hits include…
+ endorsing the rounding up Americans of all ages and genders based SOLELY on their race and confining them in camps hundreds of miles away from their homes for years.
+ defending Joe McCarthy’s witchhunting and demagoguery.
Michelle helped put the NUT in wingNUT.
Just a pre-emptive note: don’t play the “B-b-b-ut WE WERE AT WAR” bedwetting whine that’s so popular among this administration’s media prostitutes.
Ready to Hurl:
Kindly provide links to support your assertions.
While I don’t deny that Malkin has made arguments that could be characterized as you have, there’s a little more to what she has to say than you imply. Were you to provide links, all could weigh your assertions.
Some folks view remarks such as “bedwetting whine” as a form projection, assigning to one’s opponents motives or attributes that one in fact possesses. While I don’t mean to imply such in your case, it all depends…
I still find it interesting that no major news service seems to want to pick up on the fact that three of the infamous cartoons (the worst ones at that) were published last fall in an Egyptian newspaper. Someone ought to be holding this to the nose of the extremists . . .
Herb, Muslims have the two shortest careers available. Number 1 – Suicide Bomber, Number 2 – Muslim Cartoon Artist.
Ready to Hurl – Was not the all time socialist hero of the left, FDR, the founder of ethnic intern camps? On second thought, maybe not, Adolf Hitler, another socialist proponent of the government controlling everyone’s lives, had a knack for ethnic intern camps before FDR.
Finally at least somebody is getting the point!
Lest anyone misunderstand me, I will not mention the above in any personal conversation with Muslims, but I do hope that Andrew Sullivan and perhaps many others ram this down the Wahabists’ throats. I maintain Luther’s distinction between the two kingdoms.
Hmmm. It seems that Metrospy is cashing in on the cartoon fun with a new t-shirt depicting an unflattering caricature of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on his head. Metrospy reports that it’s a big seller.
I blame Bush (especially after he did this).
My only question is whether the t-shirt has a hole for one’s head; if some critics had there way, such a hole would be superfluous.
If anyone is still reading this entry, Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute has released its State Competitiveness Report 2005. Warning! They have free-market, limited government orientation. The press release and full report are in PDF format.
After giving it the once-over, I recommend it highly. It covers a broader range of variables than similar reports (see page 11 of the full report for its authors’ characterization of similar annual reports from Clemson [McCormick and Yandle], Progressive Policy Institute, and others) and therefore has greater analytic value.
I was initially surprised to see Massachusetts at top of the list and SC at 31 (an improvement over the past few years where it seemed stuck at #40, but if you keep in mind that the report ranks competitiveness and look at the variables they assess, you can see why: more college graduates, more 4th-graders proficient in math, more adults in labor force, more scientists and engineers per capita, more patents per capita, more venture capital, etc. Massachusetts comes in at a strong #1 (of 50 states) in the Human Resources, Technology, and Business Incubation subindices. (I was also unaware that Taxachusetts had moved to a flat-rate income tax of 5.3%, lower than what anybody with an AGI over $12K pays in SC!)
Here’s a comparison of the two state in each of the subindexes, with score/rank (where the best score is 10 and the best rank is 1 [of 50]):
That other Carolina is 26, Georgia is 27.
Download the full report.
MikeC,
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Malkin wrote an entire book defending the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
You can read about In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror on Amazon but the title is pretty self-explanatory.
My mistake about McCarthy. It’s the blonde wingnut bloviator Ann Coulter who idolizes the slimy McCarthy.
The Bush Administration has cynically fearmongered ever since 9/11. They’ve reduced the American people to enough abject fear that they’re willing to give up their civil rights. Currently Reppublican Senators even seem to be willing to be relegated to rubber stamps for a “unitary executive.” I guess that they’re nostalgic for George the III.
The comparisons to WWII are especially wildly off mark and odiously propagandistic.
The Brits went through a more prolonged series of terrorist attacks from the IRA but you didn’t hear the government constantly seeking to instill fear in the populace.
By the way, when was the last time that the terror color code was changed? Seems like it was just before the 2004 election.
Coincidence?
Ready to Hurl – You think the British government did nothing to instill fear in the populace because of the IRA.
Why do you think the Brits have cameras mounted in most public places? Some 40,000 monitor cameras nationwide in a nation smaller than most US states. Long before hijacking was in vogue, the Brits had military armed with Uzis openly patrolling in their airports. I would say these measures were not implemented to instill fear but unless their population was totally deaf, dumb, and blind they saw what the reality of protecting the population is all about.
We can all be grateful to the Bush administration and the Homeland Security office for the color remaining at orange. Let’s give credit where it is due.
Ready to Hurl –
Over a ten year period friends of mine in British Army periodically cycled through Northern Ireland — they did have a brief respite in the South Atlantic — conducting operations both necessary and unwholesome to the innocent eye, of which you seem to have two.
The British public tolerates many current excesses in their kingdom — disarming the populace, the establishment of hate crimes, police enforcement of manners and dress codes — because of their memory of The Troubles.
Bad example, try again.
If Bill Clinton had not dismantled or NORAD ground radar, we would have been able to locate and track all the hijacked planes from the ground.
Too bad he also refused to arrest Bin Laden and had Al Gore cover up the first Al Qaeda attack on TWA 800.
This past Sunday, Ms. Scoppe provided more proof that she, and her newspaper, oppose comprehensive tax reform.
She argued that lowering property taxes will “cost businesses” over $400,000,000 in sales taxes. How so? Businesses don’t pay sales taxes on the items they sell. They COLLECT taxes for the state.
Ah, but they are worried that reform will end the exemptions they lobbied so hard for, on the items that they buy. They don’t want to obey the same laws as individual taxpayers.
Ready to Hurl – Was not the all time socialist hero of the left, FDR, the founder of ethnic intern camps? On second thought, maybe not, Adolf Hitler, another socialist proponent of the government controlling everyone’s lives, had a knack for ethnic intern camps before FDR.
The British public tolerates many current excesses in their kingdom — disarming the populace, the establishment of hate crimes, police enforcement of manners and dress codes — because of their memory of The Troubles.