{"id":730,"date":"2005-05-11T11:34:33","date_gmt":"2005-05-11T15:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2005\/05\/11\/what_tax_furor\/"},"modified":"2005-05-11T11:34:33","modified_gmt":"2005-05-11T15:34:33","slug":"what_tax_furor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2005\/05\/11\/what_tax_furor\/","title":{"rendered":"What Tax Furor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Virginia-Pilot Monday published three editorials on taxes. The first<\/a> put the \u201cno new taxes\u201d argument in perspective.<\/p>\n

A few days back, the U.S. Census bureau reported that state taxes in Virginia went up $147 on average last year. Even so, Virginia fell from 29th to 31st among its sister states in per capita collections by state government.<\/p>\n

The Tax Foundation’s figures are even more telling since they combine state and local levies and report them as a percentage of personal wealth. As a function of ability to pay taxes, Virginia’s burden was 35th lowest in the nation last year.<\/p>\n

The Tax Foundation predicts the ranking will rise just one notch, to 34th, in 2005, even with last year’s tax increase in place for the full year. <\/p>\n

As the campaign season wears on, voters should beware of candidates spouting false claims about high taxes. Virginia’s goal should be the lowest possible taxes to provide good schools, safe neighborhoods and a decent transportation system.<\/p>\n

Right now, by national standards, Virginians aren’t being overcharged for what they get.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the Pilot cite two jurisdictions that are finding little resistance to higher property taxes. A vast majority of the people testifying at a Suffolk public hearing<\/a> supported higher salaries for fire fighters, police and teachers.<\/p>\n

In Portsmouth, the city council increased spending for schools with funds raised through higher house assessments. The Pilot credits taxpayers<\/a> who have been \u201cremarkably quiet about the big jump in taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Same could be said of the entire state, yet the media will continue to give legs to the manufactured anti-tax furor. I guess we shouldn\u2019t be surprised, given the general conservative bias of the mainstream media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Virginia-Pilot Monday published three editorials on taxes. The first put the \u201cno new taxes\u201d argument in perspective. A few days back, the U.S. Census bureau reported that state taxes in Virginia went up $147 on average last year. Even so, Virginia fell from 29th to 31st among its sister states in per capita collections… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}