The 2008 elections showed that the electorate was extremely dissatisfied with the status quo. The electorate really did want “CHANGE.” The voters did not want secrecy. The voters did not want a larger presence of “Big Brother.” The people did not want limitless spending. The people did not want sky high debts.
Barack Obama pounced on the unrest. He spoke eloquently, unlike President Bush who spoke like an average Southerner. The people wanted different. They wanted open. That is what Obama promised… Or at least, that is what they felt he was saying.
The 2010 elections went much the same way as the 2008 elections. In this election, people voted for change. They did not want the big government Republicans that controlled in 2008. They did not want the liberalism that the Democrats brought in through 2010. They wanted less spending. They wanted less taxes. They wanted more freedom. They wanted open government.
This brings me to a much more local issue… redlight and speed cameras.
East Tennessee has long been a conservative area. I will argue that this fact makes it unsurprising that this area would have lots of these cameras.
The worst thing someone can do in Tennessee is talk about raising taxes. This is especially true when talking about new taxes. Tennesseans revolted over a state income tax. Washington Countians did the same when the county attempted to institute a wheel tax. Tennessee and taxes do not mix well.
We have many conservatives in local offices in East Tennessee. They know the quickest way to no be re-elected is to raise taxes. Those conservatives also know that the electorate will do anything if it improves safety. What easier way is there to raise revenues without raising taxes, while improving safety? These cameras.
You can search and see that the cameras do not decrease accidents. You can see that these actually increase accidents in many cases. I am not going to get into that. You can do your own research on that.
The fact that these cameras do not raise taxes and are said to improve safety provide an easy way of increasing revenues in the short term. As lawbreakers break the law, local coffers are filled with money. If this creates a bridge until the economy improves, that means less cuts in services. Once the economy comes back, that means there will be a big surplus without raising taxes sooner rather than later. This means… more services. It is a win-win, right?
Wrong. The economy is cyclical. A boom cannot last forever. The economy will come back. It will fall again. What happens when the people become smarter in not running the red lights and they slow down? Those revenues disappear. That is going to hit hard as cuts become necessary because of the new services. Then, what happens when the economy takes another hit? That is even more. Tax increases then become very necessary. Luckily for for the current politicians, they will quite possibly be long gone when that happens. They won’t share in the blame.
All of a sudden, the political expediency of the cameras will cause a future increase of taxes. Is this something we can have? There is going to be a huge debt. We are not going to have that monkey off of our backs by then. Debt will choke off part of our future already. Can we afford to let tax increases do the same?
Let’s not kid ourselves. It is expedient to use cameras to raise revenue instead of making needed cuts. These cameras are also not about safety. If these cameras were primarily about safety, that means we are saying that these are the best way to improve safety. They are not.
I would propose getting rid of the cameras, increasing fines of running redlights, and increasing the yellow light time.
I have noticed that yellow light times do not always give you time to go through a red light. I can specifically say that shortly after the cameras were placed in Johnson City that you did not have time to proceed through the intersection at West Market and State of Franklin without getting caught by the light.
If the state created a mandatory minimum yellow light time, and an added yellow light time for distance and slow speed, they could effectively insure that no one could accidently run a yellow light. For example, you could say that a yellow light time must be a minimum of 6 seconds. Then you begin adding seconds to that light for speed limits of under 45 mph and extended distances between the stop bar and the actual light. This would improve safety. The reason this hasn’t been done is that it doesn’t provide the revenue that cameras do.
This is just the latest way that conservatives have lost their way. It is a backdoor attempt to tax. Republicans have been called out over spending. Now they need to be called out over raising taxes. Any revenue that government takes in is realistically a tax.
A true conservative would seek alternatives to creating new taxes. A true conservative would not sacrifice their honor for political expediency.
