A Second Promise

No new Taxes.

That's it. It's simple, it's effective, and it works.

Knox County, under my watch will raise no new taxes. No property tax increases, no wheel tax increases, no sales tax increases. In fact I will do my best to lower taxes.

Knox County makes a good deal of money and as it stands now, the money they take in covers those necessary and existing services that have been established. Also, that money comes from many different sources. The load of raising revenue is spread into many different areas of the citizenries life in order to reduce the amount of pain that is felt at the time of paying taxes.

If the County so desired it could issue a general tax bill to the citizens for the county asking them to pay, in a total lump sum, what they owed for the privilege of living in Knox County and partaking in the services offered. The bill could be broken down by the cost of Schools, roads, Parks, Sheriffs Office, Judiciary, and so on. This bill would likely be thousands of dollars depending on the person and would go over like a lead balloon.

All of that to say, we have multiple taxes right now that all feed into the same pot. To increase one is simply disingenuous as it is an overall increase in the tax burden of the people. This is why I say no new taxes. There must be a better way to deal with budget needs. I have my own ideas on it which I will get into in the near future.

Write-In John Spellings