By the time you read this, voting will likely be underway for our state and nation’s much anticipated midterm elections. It began Oct. 15. North Carolinians will elect a United States Senator, and the outcome of that race will affect not only us but the rest of the nation as well for at least the next six years. We will also choose state legislators and various local officials, all of whom will make decisions that affect us and our families.
In short, elections have consequences.
Also on our ballots, though less talked about than candidates, are three proposed amendments to the North Carolina Constitution.
Do not be tempted to support them.
They are legislative stunts designed to bring out certain voters, many of whom do not understand what the amendments would actually do.
Legislative proponents of the first two proposed amendments say they will lower taxes by capping state income tax at 3.5% and by stripping cities and counties of the ability to set their own property tax rates, a blatant power grab from the elected officials closest to their communities and giving it to those in Raleigh.
We would all like to pay less in all sorts of taxes, but instead of a collective “Whoopie, let’s pass this law,” let’s put on our personal thinking caps. A tax reduction as in the first proposed amendment sounds terrific on its face, but we North Carolinians also like our professional law enforcement agencies, our public schools, and our world class university system, all of which are funded in large part by the state. There is no way around the reality that less revenue means reduced services. Our state income tax rate is already capped at 7%, and a further reduction would give an even bigger break to higher income earners while expecting lower income earners to pick up the slack.
A number of communities across North Carolina drew the ire of residents in what was perceived as unfair tax revaluations in recent years that resulted in significantly higher property taxes. But taking the power of taxation away from on-the-ground local officials who see their constituents daily at the grocery, schools, and church and know first hand of their needs and desires is not the answer. It would merely put big government, not the locals, in charge. Ask yourself what a legislator from Murphy or Manteo knows—or cares—about the people of Cumberland County. Do you want that legislator deciding local tax rates for communities he or she has never visited and may never have thought about at all?
The third proposal is yet another effort to restrict our right to vote in free and fair elections. It would require that mail in votes also include photo identification. No one is asserting that this is a major problem in North Carolina, and it certainly is not. What it is a problem is erecting one more hurdle on the road to voting. It is intended to keep the increasing numbers of mail in voters in our state away from the polls, not heading to the post office.
If you look carefully at these three proposed amendments, you will likely see them for what they are—legislative sleights of hand to bring out certain voters susceptible to knee jerk words like “tax relief” and “election reform” without investigating and thinking through these proposals.
Don’t be one of those voters being led by the nose.
Up and Coming Weekly readers are smarter than that.