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Budget surplus is a matter of principle

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: September 9, 2009

In the long and usually tumultuous history of U.S. tax policy, one insidious argument too often dominates the stage, often leading to unpleasant results.

To wit: Small tax increases can be absorbed painlessly by taxpayers. Its corollary also applies: Small tax cuts are virtually irrelevant to the average taxpayer.

Embracing the first energizes the incremental, metastasizing the growth of government. Endorsing the second feeds the associated notion that government should not shrink.

Left to their own devices, actual taxpayers reject both notions, as witnessed in January 2008, when Floridians comfortably adopted Amendment 1, the property-tax-shaving proposition that kept an extra $300 in the average homeowner's pocket - a measly 82 cents a day.

Happily, Pasco County residents benefit from having at least two county commissioners who not only understand the lessons of Amendment 1's passage but also are naturally predisposed to its philosophical underpinnings.

We shall not soon forget that Ted Schrader and Jack Mariano stood with the household budgets of Pasco taxpayers.

3rd vote needed

As Pasco's annual budgeting process lurches toward the finish line, it is beginning to appear that the combination of department and agency squeezing and a first-in-memory property tax increase (but it's just a teensy-weensy one - see above) may result in the unexpected: a $3 million surplus.

Unremarkably, County Administrator John Gallagher would prefer to salt away the overage in anticipation of yet another shortfall for the 2010-11 budget. As the Tribune's Kevin Wiatrowski noted in his report on the serendipitous slopover Sunday, county planners expect a surge in commercial foreclosures to arrive next year, once again slamming Pasco's property tax income.

Schrader thinks otherwise - give it back, he says - and Mariano has provided an enthusiastic second. They will need a third vote, however, one that may not be easy to come by. Ann Hildebrand expertly waffled but leans toward supporting, as ever, Gallagher's position. Pat Mulieri also rarely bucks the administrator.

That leaves it to Michael Cox, the board's lone Democrat, to reaffirm his avowed blue dog fiscal conservatism.

More than good faith

Arguments against the so-called "give-back" (an insidious term) are easy to forecast. As was noted previously, the key point is the expected size of the cut: It's tiny, about $30 for the owner of a $150,000 house, or roughly five Cuban sandwiches, in Zephyrhills Mayor Cliff McDuffie's reckoning.

Schrader simply has the better of this debate: "Even though it may just be a token amount," he has said, "it's a gesture of good faith on our part."

As they weigh Schrader's position, commissioners should ask themselves this: If the projected surplus did not exist, would they raise taxes the same amount to produce the same reserve-plumping purpose?

If the answer is that they would not, then their course of action becomes obvious: They must vote with Schrader and Mariano to approve the cut.

The size of each taxpayer's savings is immaterial. The principle at stake is priceless.

Keyword: The Jax Files, for Tom Jackson's bonus musings.

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