Orem City Center
Deseret News columnist Doug Robinson sums up perfectly why Orem residents are pushing back against new taxes to pay for UTOPIA.
More than 5,000 Orem residents signed a petition to force a property-tax referendum in November 2013. That means the tax increase will be frozen until after the referendum. City officials are sweating bullets.
What’s the big deal about a few cents a day, they wonder?
That sort of thinking is the problem — and the genius of the tax system.
Don’t you see what’s happening here? Taxes are raised incrementally, so nobody notices. A little this year, a little next year, a little the year after that. A little more for the county, a little more for the city, a little more for the state, a little more for the feds. Everybody’s got their hands out asking for just a little, so nobody gets upset, and look where it’s left us after decades of asking. In 2009, a median-income American family of two parents and three children paid 25.3 percent of its income to federal, state and local government. One-fourth of its income.
It began with a few cents. And a few more cents. And a few more cents.
To read the rest of Robinson’s column, click here.
