Spoken Like a True Socialist

Several downtown Tulsa property owners complained Thursday about astronomical raises in their property taxes in order to fund the new baseball stadium, according to the Tulsa World. One of them said his tax rate would go from $100 per year to $6,346, and that he can't afford to pay it.

After the meeting, Mayor Kathy Taylor noted that property owners representing nearly 88 percent of the square footage subject to the assessment fee did not file objections.

Consider the implications of her statement. This is where we are today.

We don't hold elections that we know we cannot win. We create assessment districts through regulatory procedures.

We justify the taking of property (taxes) on the few because they are in the minority, and in the way of "progress."

The mayor pretends that the protests of the assessment fees represents the "no" vote in some sort of referendum. Do you suppose it would have made any difference at all had 51% of the affected property owners complained? How about 61 percent? Ninety percent? One hundred percent?

No, this project is going through whether they like it or not, whether they can afford it or not, and if not then they will have tax liens filed against them, they will probably lose their property, and the chop-licking friends of the Borg Queen will scurry in to assimilate the area.

This is eminent domain on the cheap, by using extraordinary taxing authority against individual property owners who are in the way, all the time proclaiming that the greater good of The People is being advanced.

Several members of the Tulsa city council complained last summer that they were forced to vote quickly, without sufficient study.

Now we see why.