Roddy Stinson, a columnist at the San Antonio Express-News, has hit the nail on the head with a piece in today’s paper. He correctly describes the response of local governments to the idea of slowing down the amount of money they can grab as “Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Leading the sky-might-fall chorus is the well-heeled, city-government-is-king Texas Municipal League.”
Stinson goes on to describe the TML as a “private, nonprofit organization that does the bidding of municipal politicians regardless of whether those politicians have the best interests of taxpayers in their tax-and-spend hearts, souls, minds and gizzards.” Sadly, he has it right.
The folks at TML are the most fierce opponents of any and all spending restraint. They want government, particularly local government, to have unfettered access to your wallet. And they sure as heck don’t like the recommendations perculating out of the Appraisal Reform Task Force which would slow down how much money local governments can grab from you.
And best of all, TML gets its money from your wallet. What a system: they advocate for bigger government, so they can down the road increase the dues your local government pays into TML, so they can advocate for bigger government. Not a bad racket…
(FYI… Americans for Prosperity-Texas filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the use of tax dollars for lobbying. It’s amazing such a lawsuit has to be filed. Thomas Jefferson once said that to “compel a man to furnish funds for the propigation of ideas he disbelives and abhors is sunful and tyrannical.” Amen, Tom. Go get ’em, AFP!)
