There was a time – when Raleigh had a Republican Mayor – when growth meant no new taxes. Back then, when the city grew, new people and new businesses moved here, they paid new taxes, revenues went up and the city didn’t have to raise tax rates on the rest of us.

Mysteriously, this has changed under Mayor Meeker and the Democrats. Suddenly, the clarion call coming out of City Hall is we have to raise taxes because 10,000 new people are moving here each year.

This is puzzling. Don’t these new people pay taxes? If we didn’t have to raise tax rates to pay for growth when Tom Fetzer was Mayor – why do we have to do it under Charles Meeker? What changed?

This whole call for higher taxes to pay for growth has a bit of a flim-flam at its heart.

What’s really happening in Raleigh is a spending spree. The Mayor’s spending hundred of millions of dollars for a new Convention Center, for new taxpayer subsidized hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. Not to mention millions for Lite-Rail and $150,000 to lure the Jehovah’s Witness Convention to the RBC Center.

Does anyone recall Mayor Fetzer supporting tax subsidies for hotels or restaurants? Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe there is a connection between all the Mayor’s runaway spending and his property tax hikes, school bond tax hikes, car registration tax hikes and tax hikes on new homes.

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