Kyle Cassidy wrote:
You have to fund it somehow, and if one of the goals is to cut the big
doners out (and thereby their influence), you need to make up for some
of that lost revenue. And we already heard that going door to door with
hat in hand doesn't seem to work. If you tax everybody, then a) you get
the money you need and b) you don't have Penn and Drexel calling the
shots and c) it's beholden to it's funders -- us. I don't see another
way to do it, (apart from roving vigilanti groups that issue smackdowns
on people who don't clean up their own properties, which I could go with
as well).
It does make for an interesting problem. Obviously, it's kind of silly
to expect everyone, businesses and churches and homeowners alike, to pay
the same amount: $300 a year is far more of a hardship on me than it
would be to, say, Kinko's. And one _hopes_ that the goal of this project
_isn't_ to price people out of the neighborhood.
Should homeowners pay less than business owners? I certainly think so.
After all, business owners are better equipped to pay higher rates
(i.e., they can adjust their prices, write off expenses, etc.), and
benefit more than homeowners (i.e., businessmen get more business, while
homeowners' benefits are in the more abstract and less liquid realm of
Property Values). But if business owners have to pay more, then they'll
feel entitled to claim more control over the NID.
However, homeowners can claim more control for equally good reasons.
It's easier for a business to move in and out of the area. They don't
have a financial structure that can be adjusted as a business's-- so the
cost burden's higher on them. There are quality of life issues, too, and
the NID can't promote business at the expense of, say, children. So make
up for the deficit with power.
In short: it won't be fair, so let's find the unfairness we could all
live with.
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