Beaufort County Commissioners hurt the local economy by stockpiling cash | Eastern North Carolina Now

There is nothing like our politicians, crowing and braying that they are doing one thing while they are actually doing the opposite.  Five of our finest claim they are doing an excellent job or managing Beaufort County Government.  This claim is made in the face of increased spending and hiring more employees every year.  These guys think they are Masters of Finance because County revenues increase every year.  They spend the millions of increases and brag about not raising taxes.  They increase spending by about 8 million dollars each year.  With the continuation budget scam they run, that 8 million is cumulative each year.

Most of this increased revenue comes from inflation and new construction in the County.  So far all governments (county, state and federal) are  on the good side of inflation.   When inflation begins it raises all boats if the federal government borrows and spends.  The reason is that inflated prices increase taxes dramatically.  The Biden Administration has handed out billions in free money to all governments.  Politicians feel prosperous. All governments have plenty of money. 

The bad news is that after a few years, family incomes do not rise as fast as increased expenses.  That is a very real tax increase, particularly on people and businesses that are just getting by. 

The Federal government can print its own money.  It is printing money hand over fist.  As long as it prints increasing amounts of money, we will continue to have fake prosperity along with real rising inflation.

State and county governments cannot print their money.  If they spend more, they eventually must raise the tax rate.

Our county government is awash in money.  Five of our Commissioners (Waters, Rebholz, Langley, Booth and Walker) have reacted to the abundance of money in a greedy way.  Rather than returning surplus money to the rightful owners, the taxpayers, they have found places to hide it.  Like most liberal politicians they are actively trying to find places to spend it.  In the short term they are sucking money out of the local economy and reducing the tax base for future expenses.  But even worse, they are confiscating money for one group (current taxpayers) for the benefit of future taxpayers who may not benefit from the money stashed away.  That is classic bad tax policy—taking from one group who do not benefit and spending it for another group who did not pay.  Sound tax policy says, “those who benefit should be the ones who pay.”

For example, if the Gang of Five eventually spend this stash of cash on a jail those who paid the money will not be the beneficiaries as much as those who benefit, assuming you can say anyone benefits from a jail.

The Beaufort County stash of cash had accumulated more than 30 million dollars at the beginning of this year (2023) The Gang of Five hastily created a special capital reserve fund and stuck 5.6 million dollars in it.  At that time and today they have no clue what they will spend this money on.  Yet, they mouth about all the needs we have.  Every government and government agency can produce lists of needs that go into the tens of millions of dollars.  Ninety nine percent of these needs are pure hog wash.  This is very true in Beaufort County. Everything of any importance is funded.

Stan Deatherage and I made motions to reduce taxes by a modest amount this year.  We requested a reduction of 5 cents.  This would have resulted in 3.2 million dollars of reduced revenue.  The motion did not pass by a vote of 2 to 5.  Our total budget is about 70 million dollars, so 3.2 million would have been a drop in the bucket.

In a recent article Buzz Cayton talked about the human side of taxes.  Families that work for a living are hard pressed, in this inflation, to take care of their expenses, and make tax payments.  In Beaufort County there are thousands of families and small businesses that are just getting by.  An increase in taxes hits them harder than the more well to do.

When the Gang of Five (Langley, Waters, Booth, Rebholz and Walker) refused to return the tax money to the rightful owners they took the 3.2 million out of  circulation in Beaufort County.  They sent the money to the big bankers so it could be loaned in other states.  Those harms all of us.  If the money were spent in Beaufort County it would help everyone.  Money is usually used several times as it turns over before leaving the County.  Economists call this the “Multiplier Effect.”  Returning that 3.2 million dollars to its rightful owners would give our Beaufort County economy as much as a 12-million-dollar boost if the multiplier were 4.  It would certainly provide a lot of comfort to our citizens in purchasing food, heat and gas.  Twelve million dollars is the equivalent of several hundred jobs.  By stashing that money in out of county banks those jobs are lost.

The 3.2 million dollars is the average income of about 60 families in Beaufort County. If the money circulates four times, we get the equivalent income of 240 families.

Economists call it Regressive Taxation when tax policy “robs Peter to benefit Paul.”  Over taxation is “cutting off your nose in spite of your face.”

The Gang of Five is the same group that pushes industrial development.  They think giving tax money grants to companies to move here is a big deal.  Truth is the amount of tax money we give to companies has very little influence in their business decisions.  To the Gang of Five, it is more important to give someone money that does not need it than it is to help our working families.  The jobs that are lost are typically the jobs our young people would take but instead leave the county.  Tax grants to corporations typically go out of the county, whereas, returning the money back to taxpayers helps people who need it, as well as helping the local economy.

This excess taxation particularly hurts the small service businesses that have to pay high taxes on equipment that is essential for their businesses.  The excess taxation is often the marginal difference between keeping the business healthy and going out of business.

There is no need for any government to accumulate money that is not spent in the coming year.  That surplus government money harms taxpayers when it is loaned in other states and counties.  There is no law that mandates or allows governments to accumulate more money than they can spend in a year. 

The laws that I am familiar with presume that elected officials are frugal and will tax the public only for what is needed.  It is one thing to have high taxes and spending.  It is another to over-tax and hold on to the surplus.  This is no different than over charging and refusing to give a refund.

Over taxing and stashing the money away is not necessary because governments can always borrow money or raise taxes to meet their needs.  It is unusual that the public will stand for overtaxing and huge savings accounts.  We should “Only pay for what we need.”

I have tried to fit the behavior of the Gang of Five into several “isms.”  Their behavior has some of the characteristics of fascism and socialism, but it does not fit very well either.  It is best characterized as Elitism.   All five commissioners think they know what is better for us than we do.

If you want to change government, you need to change the people who are running government.  Vote conservative.  For True Conservatives.