Last week, a grassroots effort to repair the municipal tax cap ended the first phase of the election process when representatives of the Municipal Taxpayers League of Anchorage (MTL) officially filed their petition in the Clerk's Office at City Hall. The filing, containing about 1,100 pages, with 10 signatures per page -- was more than a foot tall and included far more than the minimum number of signatures required to qualify for the April ballot. The MTL's goal so far has been to demonstrate popular support for the petition by obtaining far more signatures than required for certification.
The MTL petition seeks to roll back over the next three years tax increases imposed on Anchorage property owners since 2003, when the former Begich administration and Anchorage Assembly approved Ordinance 2003-160, a reinterpretation of the 1983 Tax Cap Charter amendment. This move stripped the original tax cap formula (as interpreted in the 1984 ordinance) of annual payments to the city (payments in lieu of taxes) from municipal entities such as the Port of Anchorage, Merrill Field and the utilities.
The new interpretive ordinance swept aside the historical model of a lean and efficient government that'd been traditionally honored by every mayor and assembly for two decades. The Begich administration, flush with cash derived from its new and innovative authority to raise property taxes, eliminated the challenge of making the hard decisions faced by its predecessors with limited taxing authority, while also enjoying an uncommon ability to fund many services that former administrations and assemblies could only dream of funding.
Qualifying for the April 7 ballot will soon prove to have been the easy part for the MTL. In the next few weeks, opponents of the ininiative will mount a vigorous campaign to defeat it. Their tactics and strategies have been seen before, and nothing will be off-limits in their quest to win. From children to polar bears, the homeless to single mothers, belugas tosenior citizens, all will be fair game as props deployed to persuade voters that they can't afford the limitations of the original ordinance. They will overwhelm voters with narratives detailing the hardships the amendment will impose on our facilities, the environment and the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
Yes, the old adage of the camel's nose under the tent is so, so true. The tax cap was breached and the camel now owns the tent.
If the MTL attempts to win with a campaign based on the concepts of fairness and justice by asserting that the city has unfairly and unjustly raised property taxes, opponents of the initiative will overwhelm their campaign message with a parade of victims claiming they will suffer irreparable harm should the initiative pass. Voters will be forced to choose between what is perceived as fair and just for these "innocent victims" and the justice and fairness of taking more money from property owners who, in comparison, are fully capable of contributing their own fair share.
Moreover, although the conduct of the initiative supporters will be impeccably civil, the opponents will, nonetheless, portray them as selfish oppressors who don't care if poor children go to bed hungry or if veterans are forced to sleep under bridges. Schools will suffer dire consequences, leading to lower graduation rates and plummeting standardized test scores, the opponents will cry. Every priority, they will claim, that the previous administration supposedly struggled to fund will suddenly be at risk of being reduced or cut completely should the iniative pass. And on top of all that, the unions will go the full monty to defeat the initiative, arguing that it threatens it stifle growth of wages and benefits.
But if the MTL deploys a different strategy, one emphasizing city government's infringement on people's freedom and liberty, rather than the concepts of what is fair or just, they might effectively neutralize the opposition's demands. They could present stark examples of the perils that arise when a society seeks such lofty ideals at the expense of the very values they are trying to protect. Also, they could emphasize how our property-tax system worked before the Begich administration came to power. The authority to tax and decide how that tax is computed was agreed on by the citizens and the Assembly in 1986. Briefly stated, the taxpayer agreed to the government's taking a portion of their liberty and freedom -- in the form of tax dollars (a measure of his liberty and freedom) -- so the city could provide essential services for the community. In return, the citizen, via the tax cap, demanded the government provide quality services with the limited revenues or seek approval from the voters when more tax dollars are needed. The tax cap was an instrument with which the citizen prevented the government from abusing its power to encroach on the liberty and freedom of its constituents.
The MTL initiative will restore the citizen's inalienable right to determine how much liberty and freedom they are willing to cede to city government. It will reassert the principle that the government's job is to protect liberty and freedom, rather than to take them and to grant them.