Who Really Wanted Higher Taxes?
| Does anybody really want to pay more tax to the
government? I sincerely doubt it. But when you look closely at the vote
counts from Tuesday's election, it's obvious that some were lead to
believe that a higher sales tax was needed "for the children." For the
children has become one of the most abused clichés in the English
language. It worked for many years but people have finally grown weary
of the phrase thus the outcome of the vote on higher sales taxes. After
all who doesn't want to help children? Suppose our elected officials had asked us to vote in a higher sales tax but told us there was really no reason for the tax hike. I imagine the vote would have been even greater against a tax increase. Any time government officials want more of our hard earned money, they tend to come up with some kind issue that they think the voters will rally around and more often than not, it's education. That drum has been beat to death. In a precinct by precinct break down of the defeat of the sales tax hike, it's interesting to see how each community felt about more taxes. Of the thirteen precincts that were able to vote on the tax hike, only one voted for the increase. Tellico Village east passed the the hike by a 290 vote margin. The next closest was Greenback. The third district including Greenback voted down the measure but by the narrowest margin. The measure failed by only 11 votes. TellicoVillage in divided into two precinct with the parkway being the divider. Tellico Village East consists of the property between the parkway and the river which includes all of the water front property. The other precinct consists of the properties to the west of the parkway. Tellico Village east, the river front precinct, passed the sales tax referendum. Yet the other precinct voted it down. That's a bit odd any way you look at it. The closeness of the vote in Greenback is a little easier to explain. The folks in Greenback are at the near desperate point to do something about their antiquated facilities and would probably take any steps necessary in an attempt to get the much needed improvements at their school. And who could blame them. Over all even with threats of higher property taxes and promises to do something "for the children" voters still rejected higher taxes. The over all defeat of the tax was a little less than two to one or 60.33% against and 39.67% for. Obviously the voters felt informed enough with the facts to out right reject the increase. The Lenoir City precinct was by far the least supportive of higher taxes with only 26.83% of the voters supporting the higher taxes. This could be explained by the fact that Lenoir City officials have raised property taxes over and over and much of the Lenoir City population are retires on fixed incomes and just can't afford higher taxes. What ever the reasons, the voters of Loudon said we don't want any higher taxes. Below is a spread sheet with the vote tallies by precinct.
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2/80/8