The El Paso Times Sunday published an editorial calling for a more sensible approach to civic finance.
Over the past decade, the collective tax bill on an average-value home in El Paso has risen by an inflation-adjusted 7 percent. That has eaten away at the disposable income of tens of thousands of El Paso families.
The tax increases are the result of a variety of individual decisions made by various governments over the years, most with good intentions.
Teachers deserve better pay. We need to fix our roads. Collective bargaining agreements mandate higher costs for first responders.
And voters have decided several times over the past decade to increase taxes on themselves by approving bond issues for schools or municipal quality of life projects.
But what has been missing in this approach is any sense of broad strategy.
The is big. The El Paso Times has never advocated any kind of fiscal restraint. When some taxpayers urged caution and consideration regarding the ballpark, members of the Times’ editorial board called them “crazies.” Remember, we didn’t even get to vote on that one, which the Times enthusiastically supported.
And how about this editorial when the Times endorsed David Stout over Sergio Lewis for County Commissioner District 1?
In the current budget year, Lewis confronted that choice between spending and taxes and punted the decision to his fellow commissioners. He voted for increased spending and then against the taxes needed to pay for that spending. That approach to government breeds cynicism in the electorate.
That approach breeds cynicism in the newspaper’s readership, also. If the El Paso Times wants to regain the mantel of watchdog for the taxpayer, they still have a long way to go.