Alachua County Commission candidates have been talking a lot about lowering taxes and cutting spending in the county, but we do not have a clue who they think they are kidding.
The county gets most of its money from property taxes, and with more than 50,000 of the county’s estimated 250,000 residents being college students, there are a lot of people who are not able to pay into the system. Not to mention that university-owned land, some of the most valuable in the county, is tax exempt. Cutting taxes will only force local government to spread its resources even thinner.
And forget spending cuts. They may look good on paper, but what service or program is going to suffer the consequences of higher property-tax exemptions and a battered economy? The sheriff’s office or fire rescue? It might be nice to see a fewer sheriff’s squad cars on the road, but nothing good can come from cutting any more than that. Maybe we should get rid of the quarter-cent sales tax that funds CHOICES, the county health care program. Taking away health insurance from the working poor would be a great way to save money.
Truth be told, there is not a lot of fat left to trim off the county budget. Pretty much any cut would end in more unemployment in the county or the loss of a valuable public service.
Sure, proposals from both the county and the city for new taxes and fees like the fire assessment are hard to swallow, but the budget shortfalls are very real and need to be made up somehow. Any politician that says otherwise should be taken with a grain of salt.
