Texas candidate: Elect me and I won’t serve

Source: MSNBC

‘I don’t plan to do the job. I won’t accept a paycheck’

SAN ANTONIO - A candidate for Kerr County treasurer is making a single campaign promise: Elect me and I won't serve. Ed Hamilton, 77, is challenging incumbent Treasurer Mindy Williams for the Republican nomination during the March 4 election. No Democrats are seeking the office.

He said the job is redundant and costing the county money it doesn't need to spend. The duties should be assigned to another county office, Hamilton said.

Hamilton said if elected, he would hand the duties to someone else and petition state officials for a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would allow any county to eliminate the treasurer position if it chooses.

Williams, who was appointed last spring to the $46,000-a-year post, said the job shouldn't be eliminated. It provides accountability on the county's spending, a check and balance that is "essential to county government."

Hamilton says "check and balance" is "a euphemism for duplication of effort."



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22790091/?GT1=10755

---

Yes there can be seemingly arduous bureacracy but this is just the type of person who raises hell when they find out their TAX DOLLARS are spent in a questionable way. Mr.Hamilton needs to look up "accounting controls" as well as clearly needing to find out what "check and balance" means

A lot of the three to four man small town police stations are being closed down and the county police are taking over completely. Better trained and better for public safety and justice. But some of the bubba sheriffs aren't going quite as easily as this guy was willing to do. Imagine a small town sheriff, he makes about $40k a year, his deputies make about $25k yet they live in homes and drive personal vehicles where the payments alone are double that in a year. Happened in the county north of me about ten years ago. Protection money from drug dealers, confiscated money and stolen drugs from the protected dealers competition and of those who refused to pay, etc. can earn a bubba cop a small fortune and they also love the abuse and power they have over all their neighbors. The small town to the west of me had their sheriff literally hole himself up in their jail when they shut his department down about two years ago.

He can't!!

I seriously doubt that Mr Hamilton has any idea of the function and duties of the office.

$hrub happily takes the money for performing no work....of course, it's always been a way of life for him.

Elect me and I won't do my job.

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.

the idea that "Checks and balances" might be more important than saving a nickel is pretty much foreign to them these days.

A few years ago, a Libertarian candidate ran for Washington Lieutenant Governor on the similar promise of abolishing that office as allowed by the state constitution. That I could understand, as the position is almost entirely ceremonial despite the office, staff and big budget. (The Lt. Gov. is also technically the President of the state Senate but, like the US VP, it is very rare that he actually excercises that office; day-to-day operation of the state Senate is entirely in the hands of a President Pro Tem elected by that body.)

But abolishing the position of country Treasurer? Who then will be the chief financial officer of the county? What elected official will be accountable for fiscal affairs?

Yes, they need accounting controls. However, they do NOT need a full time employee to simply oversee one other full time employee. Rather, they should already have an internal audit department that could easily handle these controls.

:hi:

That is true but we don't really know how big of a department the county has.

Bexar County (San Antonio) did this quite some time ago. The County Treasurer office is very redundant and not needed. When abolished, the duties of the CT are passed off to the County Tax Assessor Collector and others. Also, usually, the CT office has few if any employees so there are no layoffs.

I've yet to see a Republican who serves the public.