It is a fact that every tax increase that Oaklanders have endured for years was either introduced by, or supported by, labor unions.
Tired of all those parcel taxes, which for many homeowners now total more than their entire mortgage? I am. Am I pissed? Damned straight. I’m pissed that bunch of “organizers” employed by unions are constantly looking to us taxpayers to fund their schemes.
And now, in addition to all the other idiotic things your parcel taxes pay for, the unions are threatening homeowners with yet another. This one levies a parcel tax of $192 a year, one of the biggest increases in Oakland history. It claims to address the following laundry list of issues: “911 response times; keep fire stations open; prevent cuts to fire protection, police patrols, crime prevention/ investigation; address homelessness, dumping, litter/trash [and] resulting in lower taxes for most homeowners…”. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell to you, for you’re as delusional as the tax’s authors are mendacious. And yet, there are tons of delusional voters in Oakland. Every day I see petition signers at Whole Foods soliciting people to sign for “faster 911 times — save fire stations — end homelessness!” Young, dumb people line up to sign. But the entire thing is a scam. The money raised will do nothing to help out Oakland. It will only be transferred to racial agitators and an increasingly burdensome City Hall bureaucracy.
Indeed, union lies and voter credulity go hand in hand in Oakland. The City Council, which has never turned down a tax increase, is considering the proposal. But sadly, as the online Oakland Report states, “Absent from the council members' discussion was any contemplation of how the city came to need more money in the first place, nor why the many, many other taxes they already collect are not sufficient for the city to deliver basic services like public safety and clean streets.” Such a discussion could never happen in the Oakland City Council, where everything is discussed except the truth.
If the voters pass this horrendous new tax—and they almost certainly will, in our tax-loving but ignorant city—it will come on the heels of already record high property taxes, even as we voters are staring down the barrel of even higher taxes, including a nine-county massive increase in the sales tax.
The unions are parasites—living beings that live on other living beings which are hosts for its nutritional requirements. Other examples of parasites are fleas, ticks, mites and leeches. In this case, the “nutritional requirements” of the unions are money. Since unions have no way of making money themselves but only spending ours, the only way they can access money is through sucking it out of other living beings who actually produce money. Those other living beings are us: the people who work productively and keep our economy moving. Think of it this way: a union is a flea that attaches itself to the body politic of the general public, and then blood-sucks money from it. The most expedient way to do that is through taxes. This is why, over the years, unions have transitioned from truly representing their members to being leaders of the leftwing ideology that demands ever-higher taxes, even when those taxes are imposed on the very people they purport to represent. And while they’re doing their extorting, they’re promoting a wildly false, harmful racial ideology that has literally torn Oakland into pieces.
I urge you to contact your City Council member and instruct them to vote NO on this new parcel tax. The time is now to side with normal, hard-working Oaklanders, not with the corrupt unions who wish to bankrupt ordinary people.
Steve Heimoff