Renew Houston
Costello and his grassroots organization, Renew Houston, has sent 150,000 mailers asking voters to approve a change to the city charter. It is a detailed, slick mailer including a tear off, stamped, response. All you have to do is sign and mail to put their proposal on the ballot in November. They need 22,000 signatures.
If approved by voters, the proposal would create a dedicated fund for drainage and street renewal, using revenues from fees charged to businesses, homeowners and developers, as well as a portion of property tax money that presently is being used to pay off debt associated with infrastructure projects.Fees
If you read that closely, you would notice this is calling for a tax increase for dedicated funds for drainage and street renewal. For those of us who believe in effective government and are willing to pay for the services, and who realize that we live in a society that requires this participation, this is a good idea. More can be read about the proposal at Renew Houston.
Costello's challenge
Unfortunately there are many on the right (republicans, so-called conservatives) who have demonized City, State, and Federal government as the axis of evil. Republican leadership, with the help of their radio mouth pieces, have starved our government making it impossible to raise funds to address issues such as flooding and street repair. Paul (I Quit) Bettencourt, former Tax Assessor who quit weeks after being elected, has already filed a suit to stop a tax increase for clean, safe water in Houston. They are going to squeal like a pig when they hear about this new tax.
And if they don't
If the right wingers, for once, realize the City is grossly underfunded and support Costello, they leave their butts up in the air for ridicule and would lose the right to use their cute "Tax and Spend" catch phrase.
Costello has a good idea. But he will have a huge problem selling it to the "kill the government" crowd. I see the right wing losing this battle, benefiting from the results, and complaining like a pianist with gas at a recital in a small venue.
There is more to this coming later.
6 comments:
If the anti-government crowd were to get their way, don't you know they would squeal the loudest when they realize they brought about anarchy - no police or fire protection, road maintenance, airports, etc. Watch what you ask for - you may get it.
That's a ludicrous straw man. (Look it up.)
I think many of the anti-government crowd already thinks it's a prelude to armageddon that we have things like medicare, medicaid and WIC--you know, those old people, sick people and kids should have planned ahead so they would have money to take care of themselves. It is worse than anarchy to be a society that cares about all its citizens.
Pay $60 year as a homeowner so that I can drive my car on roads that haven't turned into rivers during a rainshower on my way to work or to pick my children up from school? Not worrying about water creeping up the lawn into my home when there is a sustained downpour? Well, that is just so much more onerous than car repairs or furniture & flooring replacement in my home from water damage ;-)
So the $4.1 billion budget isn't enough for essentials like roads and drainage, but is enough for nonessentials like arts funding? That seems like a silly thing to say.
I posted the above comment from anonymous just to show how absolutely stupid people can be.
Could you explain why that comment is stupid? Why does the general budget need to include non-essentials and frills like arts funding while excluding essential services like streets and flood control? Why do we need special taxation for those essentials, while including the frills in general revenue?
Here's an idea: pay for the flooding project out of the city budget, and let the voters vote on the arts funding.
Post a Comment