You can be a Republican without having to say the election was stolen

A group of Republicans has united to defend the legitimacy of US elections and those who run them

 ATLANTA (AP), May 5, 2024 — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia’s top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online.

So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught of threats, posted a message to his nearly 71,000 followers on the social platform X explaining what had happened and saying that all votes would be counted correctly.

He faced immediate criticism from one commenter about why he was weighing in on another state’s election while other responses reiterated false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“It’s still the right thing to do,” Sterling told a gathering the following day, stressing the importance of Republican officials speaking up to defend elections. “We have to be prepared to say over and over again -- other states are doing it different than us, but they are not cheating.”

Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, is part of an effort begun after the last presidential election that seeks to bring together Republican officials who are willing to defend the country’s election systems and the people who run them. ... Just 22% of Republicans expressed high confidence that votes will be counted accurately in November, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last year.  (read it all)

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GOP Nashville Summer Picnic

 

Purchase tickets.

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For Hillary and Melania

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Mayor O’Connell Proposes a no-tax-increase, ‘live within our means,’ $3.28 billion budget.

link, link, link

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A homeowner in Nashville pays a lower property tax bill than most other places in America.

by Rod Williams, May 3, 2024- Anytime a property tax increase is proposed, those supporting an increase will argue that Nashville has a low tax rate. Nashville's rate for the urban district, which is most of us living in Davidson County is $3.254. That is lower than the combined city-county rate in Knoxville which is 3.7096. It is considerably lower than Memphis at $6.09164, and also lower than many other places in Tennessee. I have not been convinced by this argument, however. I have argued that a comparable house in Nashville cost more than a comparable house in many other places and argued that the tax bill was what mattered, not the tax rate.

Well, I have discovered data that takes that into consideration. Compared to most urban areas in America, our property taxes are modest. 

First of all, one needs to understand what goes into determining the property tax bill. First, is the value of the property which is the appraisal. Many years ago, local appraisers had a lot of say into determining the appraised value and some kept them artificially low. Now, not so much. Local elected Property Assessors are supervised by the state and properties are appraised at or near market value and kept current with periotic reappraisals. The other factor is the assessment which is a percentage of the appraisal. Commercial, industrial and residential have different assessment rates. In Tennessee the assessment is 25% of the appraisal for residential property. The tax rate is rate adopted by the council and is applied to each $100 of assessment. Here is an example of how to calculate one's taxes:

To calculate the tax on your property, assume you have a house with an APPRAISED VALUE of $100,000. The ASSESSED VALUE is $25,000 (25% of $100,000), and the TAX RATE has been set by the Metro Council at $3.254 (Urban Services District) per hundred of assessed value. To figure the tax simply multiply the assessed value ($25,000) by the tax rate of $3.254. 

Urban Services District Tax Rate $3.254

$25,000 / 100 = 250 x $3.254 = $813.50

or  $25,000 x .03254 = $813.50) for a tax bill of $813.50

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy examines 74 large U.S. cities and a rural municipality in each state and arrives at an effective tax rate, that is, the tax bill as a percent of a property’s market, for each municipality.  Of all of the municipalities included in the study, Nashville ranks as the 30th highest tax rate. By comparison Memphis has the twelfth highest tax bill of the 74 municipalities.   

Nashville's effective property taxes are among neither the highest nor the lowest in the nation. 

 

Sometimes a low tax rate may nevertheless result in a high tax bill and vice versa. 

There is still an issue of how much of our county is in the urban services district and how that figures into our property tax burden compared to other counties. Our General Services District is the equivalent to what in other counties would be "county," not within an incorporated area. Even that comparison would skews toward lower a lower tax bill for Davidson County. Davidson County's General Services District tax rate is $2.922; Shelby County's tax rate is 3.39000.

None of this is to say that we are under taxed. However, compared to most other urban areas of the nation we pay lower property taxes. 

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Americans for Prosperity Tennessee will not oppose Mayor O'Connell's proposed Transit Referendum

 

by Rod Williams, May 3, 2024- The director of the Tennessee chapter of the libertarian-leaning organization Americans for Prosperity posted on X yesterday that AFPTN was unlikely to oppose the upcoming transportation referendum. I am not displeased to see this.

I am still waiting to learn more about the proposal but what I see so far, I am also not opposed. I am not yet ready to be a cheerleader for the proposal, but of all of the transportation referendum ever before us, this is the only one I have not immediately opposed. Unlike some previous proposals, it does not include a massive tunnel through Tennessee granite. It does not take a major throughfare and put fixed rail down the center of the roadway, devouring traffic lanes. It is a modest proposal. It is practical. 

Our bus system needs improvements, we need more sidewalks, and our traffic signalization is in need of a major overhaul. While I wish these things could be done out of current revenue and generally think we are overtaxed, the amount of the sales tax increase is minuscule. On the other hand, this will make Nashville have one of the highest sales tax rates in the county. On the plus side however, people from outside of Davidson County will be paying the bulk of the tax. One of the reasons a dedicated tax is necessary, is that in order to acquire federal grants for transportation improvements, a dedicated tax supporting mass transit is required. 

I would still like to see a market-driven transportation system and have some thoughts on what I would like to see happen if I had my druthers. I will explain my vision of transportation in a future post. After years of hoping for a market-driven system to emerge, it is not happening in any meaningful way on a large scale anywhere, and we need transportation and improvements now. 

Back in the mid 80's as a freshman member of the Metro Council, I, along with a libertarian political activist by the name of Roger Bissell, led an effort to defeat a one cent gas tax referendum. I am proud of that effort in defeating the proposal. That effort gave us an opportunity to promote ideas of market solutions to public issues. Some of what we proposed, such as deregulation of taxi service and the allowing of ridesharing competition and other transportation alternative have happened. Now, it is hard to imagine how Nashville would function without Uber and Lyft. While I remain an advocate of market solutions to public issues, there is nothing in Mayor O'Connell's proposal that would preclude further emergence of market solutions. 

At this time, I am not opposed to the proposal before us. I will most likely vote in favor. 

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Transit Stat Napkin Math

 by MEGAN PODSIEDLIK, The Pamphleteer, April 29, 2024 - During April 19th’s transit unveiling, the mayor and his speakers dropped interesting statistics about Nashville— some about the new transit plan, some about the city’s makeup and demographics, and some that were a bit more questionable than others. For instance… 

• More than 140 languages are spoken in Metro Nashville Public Schools.
• 13 percent of the city's population is foreign born.
• Metro Nashville is home to “hundreds of thousands” of immigrants, including Afghan parolees, Venezuelan asylum seekers, and Ukrainian refugees.
• 80 percent of WeGo’s riders are picked up along 10 of the city’s busiest roadways.
• According to the federal Department of Transportation, those who ride Tennessee public transit extend their commute time by 67 percent.
• And, according to AAA, the average Nashvillian pays $12,000 a year to own and maintain a vehicle.

According to O’Connell, here's how things will change under the Choose How You Move Plan. 

• The half-cent sales tax increase cost most Nashvillians about $70 per year.
• About 60 percent of our sales tax is paid by people who live somewhere else.
• One out of three Nashvillians will have direct, walkable access to a transit site.
• 12 monitored transit centers in key locations throughout the city, adding routes that link neighborhoods without going through downtown.
• 17 park and ride facilities will be added near high-capacity transit routes.
• WeGo Star commuter rail services will be added for travel to special events.
• 285 bus stops will be upgraded with weather covers and real time location tracking.
• Up to 26 acres of land will be acquired by Metro to build affordable housing and parks near transit hubs.

And looking into the future...

• Within five years, a traffic management center will be added and over 150 signals will be upgraded or modernized.
• Within 10 years, 60 miles of sidewalks will be built or upgraded.
• Within 15 years, 600 traffic signals will be upgraded, 86 miles of sidewalks will be completed, roadway safety projects will be completed within the 76-mile Vision Zero high injury network, and high-capacity transit will be established in all of Nashville's busiest corridors. 

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The Total Cost of Student Debt Cancellation

Committee for A. Responsible Federal Budget, April 29, 2024 - Including the Biden Administration’s new student debt cancellation plan, we estimate all recent student debt cancellation policies will cost a combined $870 billion to $1.4 trillion. That’s more than all federal spending on higher education over the nation’s entire history. The vast majority of this debt cancellation was put in place through executive actions under President Biden.

$620 billion of debt cancellation has already been implemented, including $275 billion from President Biden’s new Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) program known as SAVE, $195 billion from cancelling interest as part of nearly 41 months of repayment pauses since March of 2020, and roughly $150 billion from a variety of more targeted actions such as discharging debt for those who attended closing schools and making it easier to cancel debt under existing loan forgiveness programs. The President’s newest debt cancellation scheme could cost an additional $250 to $750 billion based on our preliminary estimates.

Our numbers differ somewhat from our previous estimates, mainly because the President’s plan to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 of student debt per person was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and the cost of his newest plan remains uncertain. To put $870 billion to $1.4 trillion in context, this range suggests the cost of recent debt cancellation is likely higher than: All historic spending on higher education prior to the COVID-19 pandemic ($744 billion from 1962 to 2019) All projected education appropriations over the next decade ($935 billion from 2025-2034) The federal cost of offering universal pre-K and universal affordable child care ($750 billion) The cost of tripling the Pell Grant program ($675 billion) As we’ve explained before, most of these student debt cancellation policies have not only been costly, but also inflationary, poorly targeted, counter to the mission of lowering college costs, and not financially justified. Instead of continuing down this road, lawmakers should work together on reforms that actually fix the student loan program and address the cost and quality of higher education. Read the analysis.

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