Thanks to a May 7 story in the Salem Reporter, I learned about the results of a survey that asked 400 Salem residents how they felt about various issues associated with the push to find a way to raise money to pay for City of Salem budget shortfalls.
Here's a PDF file of the survey results.
Download City of Salem Funding Survey
I scrolled through the results, looking for the issue that seemed most important if city officials are going to succeed in convincing citizens that this (whatever it is) is the best approach to bridge the gap between the services that need to be provided by the City of Salem, and the funding available to pay for the services.
This is what seemed most germane to me.
Almost two thirds of those surveyed, 64%, said people should pay an amount that is proportional to their income or wealth. In other words, Salem residents favor a progressive approach to raising revenue -- in the sense that a tax should have a lower rate for low income people and a higher rate for high income people.
Aside from the broad overall support for a progressive/proportional tax, this is favored by every subgroup other than Republicans. And Republicans were almost evenly split on this issue.
So it seems to me that a progressive income tax aimed at getting the most money from high income Salem residents is the most feasible approach to dealing with the City of Salem budget problems.
I don't like the idea of having a dedicated tax for public safety (police/fire), the library, or whatever. I understand the appeal of this: find a popular service the city provides, then ask voters to pass a tax that funds that service, which frees up general fund money for other services.
This just seems unnecessary. Taxing people in a manner proportional to their income or wealth is highly popular. Wealth is difficult to determine. Income is easy to determine via state income tax records. Lower income people can be exempted from the tax entirely.
I suspect that if a progressive income tax proposal was clearly explained to voters, it would be approved.
Yes, other survey questions indicated that user fees and a business tax were considerably more popular than an income tax, but a survey isn't the best way to assess how people in Salem feel about various revenue raising options, given that respondents weren't able to carefully consider the pros and cons of the options they were presented with.
Comments