Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
— Benjamin Franklin, in a letter dated 1789.
According to yesterday’s issue of the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, we will have a chance to vote on a property tax measure this coming November. The School Board approved a ballot measure that will allow us to choose to continue paying a ‘Mill Levy Override’ tax, permanently.
Or, to choose not to.
Hmmm. I wonder how I will vote. Being mostly confused about this kind of thing.
The ‘Mill Levy Override’ tax, a total of $1.7 million per year, was approved in 2018 by the voters (including me) for a period of seven years. So it will expire in 2025, if we don’t choose to extend it… permanently.
If my math is correct, that amounts to about $120 a year “per person” living in the Archuleta School District. Which is another reason I’m happy to be a bachelor. If I were married, my household portion would be twice that much.
But since I don’t pay property tax based on “per person” but based on “the value of my property”, it actually doesn’t matter that I’m a bachelor. Which is kind of depressing, in a way. There ought to be some kind of benefit to being a bachelor.
Did those extra school taxes, that we’ve been paying since 2018, do us any good? I have no idea.
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about taxes. Or about death, which is the other ‘certainty’ that Benjamin Franklin warned us about.
But maybe I should?
I mean, maybe I should be thinking more about taxes. (Not about death.) Considering that the School Board is allowing me — and all the other voters — to express our political desires this November. Presumably, the School Board wants a “Yes” vote, and I imagine we will be seeing campaign materials and advertising, promoting that choice, in the coming weeks.
When Ben Franklin and some other revolutionaries wrote up the U.S. Constitution, it was a pretty controversial document, and it nearly got rejected by the 13 newly independent States. For one thing, it proposed something that looked dangerously like ‘democracy’. It allowed the States to conduct this thing called ‘elections’, allowing ordinary people to pick their government leaders.
Before the American Revolution, our government leaders — who, at the time, mostly lived across the Atlantic Ocean, over in Great Britain — had been chosen either by God (as was the case with King George III) or by males who owned property (the Members of Parliament).
But the authors of the U.S. Constitution were slightly careless. They wrote up rules that, ultimately, allowed even women to vote. And people who didn’t own property. People who couldn’t write their own name, in some cases.
Like, pretty much everybody is allowed to vote, nowadays. Especially in Colorado.
Even people like me.
I tried, a few months ago, to find a notary public, to notarize some documents, and had trouble locating one in Pagosa. Apparently, you have to do a training, and pass a test, to become a notary public. And pay a fee.
But I can vote for President of the United States without any kind of training, or test, or paying a fee. How can that be a smart way to choose a government?
When you really give it some thought, it would seem a lot safer to let God choose our Presidents. And especially, our County Commissioners.
I know a lot of people will disagree with that suggestion, because they think voting is a ‘right’. Once you allow people to vote once, they want to do it again and again. It’s just like allowing your kids to eat ice cream for dessert. They start to think of it as a ‘right’ rather than a ‘privilege’.
But voting is more dangerous than ice cream.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.