Those people promoting the El Paso Independent School District’s bond issue aren’t above playing fast and loose with whatever version of the truth they’re selling.
Here’s a graph I lifted from elpasospeak.com:
That blue line represents a bond issue of $700 million, only slightly more than the proposed $669 million bond proposal. You see it’s flat, indicating no change in the tax rate.
Here’s a screen grab I got of a conversation on Facebook:
In it, someone posting as EPISD Board Member Susie Byrd says “As the district pays down the bond, the tax rate does decrease.”
I guess technically it does decrease. In 2042.
Unless there’s another bond issue in the next twenty-five years.
As John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run we’re all dead.”
Pants on fire, and smoke and mirrors to go along with it.
What a weak and disjointed response from a Board Member. The graph cannot possibly be read as a tax decrease that “happens slowly though over time.” Who in the world really thinks the precipitous drop at the end of this fantasy will result in a zero tax rate in 2046? Foolishness. There are not enough seniors in El Paso to credibly argue that it’s “important to note ” that the burden to the vast majority of property owners is anything other than just a piling on of unaffordable taxes. Even seniors who she says will “see no impact from the bond” certainly will feel the very real effect of ridiculously high property taxes on their diminished property values as economic growth prospects stagnate. These policies would assuredly convince El Paso seniors and younger citizens alike to look elsewhere for a more affordable place to live, and would dissuade prospective new El Pasoans from moving here in the first place. Other than that, it’s all good.
You’re supposed to say, “That’s how they express the date in Mexico, where I spend much of my time.”