"I might think about raising taxes if the police were in danger..."

The City Council election in Fayetteville, NC, is next week. This week, they're doing "candidate stand" articles in the paper. Naturally, one of the questions is always "is there a situation in which you'd vote to raise taxes?"

In our anti-tax little community, saying there's a reason you'd vote to raise taxes is the kiss of death for your campaign. You can't come in and say, "I'd raise them now because we need the money to attract some new non-retail business, then lower the rates when the tax revenue from the new business allows us to do so."

Enter Brian Irving, head of the Cumberland County Libertarian Party and candidate for city council. When presented with that question, he said, "If we'd eliminated every city service except for police and fire protection, and we were in danger of losing them, then I might think about raising taxes."

Fortunately, the way the city council in this town is set up, if someone was that stubborn they could basically tell him to go sit in the corner while mature, responsible adults dealt with the city financial crisis.

I mean they come right out and say what they want. Unlike Republicans and (some) Democrats who always talk about how they want to use government to help people, but then usually end up being beholden to special interests.

Not that Libertarians are right of course, just a bit more intellectually respectible.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

that your paper is covering the issues. Here in Greensboro, our paper acts like the city council and mayor are running for homeroom president. While several candidates have tried to make the campaign about issues, the newspaper hasn't come close to reporting anything like you describe. It's all been about personalities and style.