Monday Morning Rundown

Columns

by Karen Goff — May 2, 2016 at 9:00 am 18 Comments

Parking Changes At Wiehle-Reston East — One of the garage entrances is closed for two weeks starting today. [Reston Now]

Kudos, SLHS Team — South Lakes High School’s Odyssey of the Mind team won regional and state competitions to move on to the World Finals in Ames, Iowa May 25-29. South Lakes team members are Margaret Lashley, Darya Kharabi, Eric Kim, Sydney Stoffel, Leah Moyer, Aaryan Bhandari, and Lauren Phan. The team is fundraising to help cover their travel expenses, and would appreciate community support. [Generosity]

Speak Up On Meals Tax — The Fairfax Meals Dine Out group supporting passage of a Fairfax County meals tax, which would provide $90 million in annual revenue, is encouraging citizens to attend the May 3 Fairfax County Board of Supervisor committee meeting where the tax will be discussed. [Facebook]

Headless Ned Stark

On the third day, Jon Snow arose… Melisandre has brought Jon Snow back from the dead.
Meals Tax is Great!

I cant wait to pay more to get the same meal and service when I go out to my favorite place to eat. I bet I wont have to wait as long to get a table so I will be saving time! Keep raising those taxes and you might as well toss in raising the hourly pay of those bus boys and dishwashers to 15 dollars an hour while you are at it. What possibly could go wrong?
- Mike M
  
  That’s the spirit! Actually the dysfunctional argument they are using says we need s meals tax because we now put everything on the backs of the property tax payers. They just ignore the fact that this is MORE tax and not a diversification of revenue streams. They know this. But this sort of two bit sophistry works with the wealthy leftists in Reston.
  - Quint
    
    Of course it’s a diversification of revenue streams. Property taxes are paid by people who live in Reston. Meals taxes are paid by people who eat in Reston. As Reston becomes more of a destination where people’s place of work or recreation or entertainment is located, the latter becomes a much larger population than the former. The latter is also largely responsible for an increase in maintenance and governmental effort required to keep Reston running, so it makes sense for them to pay more than the small population who lives here.
    
    Then again, maybe you’re against all taxes altogether. Which means you maybe missed a civics lesson on why we have taxes and a government and don’t realize how much you’re benefiting. In that case, you should consider living out in a forest somewhere and staying off the internet? Wouldn’t that be nice for everyone?
    - Mike M
      
      Quint. You are part of the machine, aren’t you. It’s a tax increase. Calling it diversification is disingenuous. It is a new and additional tax. If they wanted to diversify, the could offset property taxes with a discount,, then make up for it in the meals tax. But, no. As was clear early on, this tax increase is to support the Public Schools largess.
      - Quint
        
        We’re all part of the machine. If you want to be separate from the machine, go live in a forest or jungle somewhere and fend for yourself. Maybe somewhere in Africa would be good? No taxes there as long as the marauding terrorist groups don’t spot you and shake you down and/or enslave you.
      - Mike M
        
        Oh no. I will stay and vote against this and speak against it and write against it until it is defeated. How about you go to Europe where the taxes are even higher? I’ll help you pack.
      - Quint
        
        Lucky for all of us, you’re going to fail. I assume you’re familiar with failure.
      - Mike M
        
        Time will tell. You can continue to assume. It’s one area where you show proficiency. And how would that new tax be lucky?
    - vdiv
      
      You had a good argument and lost it by going personal.
  - Why do you bother?
    
    At least this tax is voluntary. Don’t want to pay it? Eat somewhere else!
    - Mike M
      
      No. That’s not really voluntary. I prefer to eat where I live. Keep trying. This tax hasn’t even been approved yet, but I can see the fans of the FCPS bloat are singing in harmony.
      - Quint
        
        Eating out is a luxury. If you can afford it, you can afford to chip in a little to support the community in which you’re eating (whether it’s where you live or somewhere you’re visiting or passing through). If you can’t afford it, eat your meals at home. It sounds like you can’t actually afford your lifestyle and you want to blame someone else for that problem. Maybe you should go back to school and make something of yourself.
      - Mike M
        
        No. Eating out is not what you declare it to be. It is also not up to you to decide what I can afford. How arrogant of you.
      - Quint
        
        You need me to list all the things government does for you? Again, go to an isolate place with no infrastructure of any kind and count all the things you miss, and you have your answer.
      - Mike M
        
        You make a typical Lib error. You keep restating my words as I don’t beleive in taxes. We covered that. I pay plenty of taxes and probably more than you do. The businessman and economist and household head and taxpayer in me wants efficiency for my expenditures. I know this tax is a favor to the FCPS. I believe the FCPS is inefficient. So I don’t want to pay the additional tax which you and other deceitfully misrepresent as an attempt to diversify revenue for the County. If we were only talking about revenue diversification, I’d be for it. But we are really talking about boosting my taxes to cover inefficient management at the FCPS, county, state and federal level. Why would you support any tax increase if you can’t show return on the investment?
      - vdiv
        
        Perhaps if the school system was operated as “frugally” as you suggest that Mike and really most of us eat, then maybe it wouldn’t need the extra tax dollars…
GB

Imagine I started mowing your lawn. Then I demanded $100 for doing it. And then you remembered you only have flowers and no grass.

That’s how many people feel about government services and the taxes that go with them.

I’m glad some people are happy with the government services they receive; it’s a much more pleasant way to live than being angry about what’s been taken from you.

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