Augusta Supervisor Race: "The Pot calling the Kettle Black"?....

The local Staunton newspaper (NewsLeader) recently did a piece on the Augusta County Board of Supervisor race where the challenger, David Karaffa (I), brought to light that the current Beverly Manor Supervisor, Jeremy Shifflett (R) has missed other than BOS meetings in the past. All of the seven Augusta County Supervisors are on special community committees and many times are welcome to attend but are not allowed to actually vote during the process...

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Unfortunately the NewsLeader did not investigate or explore the meeting attendance record of any of the other Supervisors thus making this basically a "Political Hit Piece" by Karaffa against the sitting Beverley Manor District Supervisor...

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Interestingly the NewsLeader article has gotten numerous comments from local citizens who have seen this piece for what it is. In addition to this one commentor has provided an interesting link to the minutes of a BOS meeting where one Supervisor (Beyler) questions another Supervisor (Pyles) regarding his attendance to a committee that dealt directly with the recent Augusta County re-assessment process that he (Pyles) has actively criticized and has been very critical about. The BOS transcript shows Beyler asking Pyles if he had attended these meetings and especially the meeting that dealt with the methodology used to perform the re-assessment process. Supervisor Pyles never really answers the attendance question or provides an actual number, if any, of meetings that he attended...

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The re-assessment issue has become a obvious political tool used by members of the "Gang of Four" (Tracy Pyles, David Karaffa, Kurt Michael, Michael Pattie) who are all running for the Supervisor seats in their own districts. Instead of allowing the re-assessment process to evolve and allow the homeowner to challenge their individual assessment by the procedure provided, members Pyles & Kurt Michael organized a protest by county citizens before the actual individual challenge process was allowed to happen or complete. The vast majority of those protesting no longer see it as an issue now that the process was allowed to be completed as required by law, they had the opportunity to challenge any questionable assessment, and the BOS set an appropriate tax rate with the current economic situation...

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With the above transcript of the Augusta BOS meeting it is obvious that Shifflett is not the only one that has missed committee meetings in the past and thus the "Pot calling the Kettle black" reference above...

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The hope here is that the local newspapers will further investigate issues like this and others sure to come in the future so the voters will have all information to make their decision with....

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Obama's Class-Warfare....

Two very good examples to describe how things actually work as compared to the "Class-Warefare" that Obama is throwing around....

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all comes to $100.If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing like they do now with the present income tax structure.

The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59 of the bill.
So that is what the ten men decide to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you all are such good customers I am going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20”. Dinner for the 10 men now costs just $80...

The group still wanted to pay the bill the same way that they paid their taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men -- the Paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everybody would get his “Fair Share”?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth and sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal…So, the restaurant owner suggested it would be fair to reduce each mans bill roughly the same amount; and proceeded to work out the amounts each man would pay.

The fifth, like the first four now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth man now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings)
The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings)
The eight man now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings)
The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings)
The tenth man now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings)

Each of the six was better off then before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings…

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man “but he got $10”…“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. Its unfair that he got ten times more than me!?”“That’s true”, shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploit’s the poor!”The nine men surrounded the tenth man and beat him up…

The next night the Tenth man did not show up for dinner, so the Nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half the bill!

And that Boys & Girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just might not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier…David R. Kamerschen, PH.DProfessor of EconomicsUniversity of Georgia
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And then there is this cute little cartoon (makes it easier for some of my Democrat friends to follow) which also shows what happens when you take away the incentive to better and improve your self.....

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