Tuesday, July 13, 2010

McHenry Tax Hike - dangerous business

I had to read Cal Skinner's www.mchenrycountyblog.com today to find out just how dangerous it was going to be last night for the McHenry City Council to vote on a sales tax hike. Plenty dangerous, from a photo on Cal's blog.

A McHenry police officer was present with his search wand and, according to McHenry County Blog, "wanded" spectators after they emptied their pockets and bags. Three cheers to the spectator who protested being searched before entering the meeting! Did McHenry P.D. get tipped that there was going to be gunplay at the meeting? What was the reason for the elevation in security?

Guess he had to be there to protect elected officials who were about to "steal" money from the customers of McHenry businesses. Or was he there to make sure that those being robbed wouldn't attempt to defend themselves?"

Surely, McHenry has heard about the recession (depression?) and that many of its residents have joined the ranks of the unemployed. Of course, not raising the sales tax might have resulted in more unemployment in McHenry; at least, among those called City employees.

It's a tough call, whether to increase income (taxes) or cut expenses (services, employees). Will the increase in sales tax from 7.0% to 7.5% cause people to shop outside the City of McHenry on January 1?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Why does Cal show the sales tax going up 50%...he shows it going from 1.0 to 1.5. Which would be a 50% increase...but its actually going up from 7.0 to 7.5 which is an increase of 7.1%. Is my math wrong or am I missing something?

Gus said...

It's the City's 1.0% portion of the 7.0% total sales tax that will increase. The City's sales tax of 1.0% will increase to 1.5% on January 1.

M.U.G. said...

Anytime you give people the authority to create or raise a tax you can be rest assured it will happen. Funny though those same people have the authority to stop spending but that seldom happens. Mmm, why did we seek our independence again?