Phoenix transit tax is full of election games
The perfidy of the City of Phoenix in elections has become boundless.
The city long ago perfected the art of raising taxes in small-turnout elections.
Raising taxes when few voters will show up, and most of those who do are city groupies of some sort, isn’t playing fair with the broader electorate the city will be taxing and is supposed to serve.
Nevertheless, timing an election when the chances of success are greatest is hardly a Phoenix original sin. Let’s call this an honest cheat.
The honest cheat, however, isn’t enough for the current crew at City Hall. They also lie, dissemble and misdirect. And they do it on the ballot itself.
City Hall was intent on defeating an initiative to switch new city workers, other than firefighters and cops, to a defined contribution system, like a 401(k). The ballot language the city concocted included a blatantly false statement that passage would prohibit it from making contributions to a state public safety pension system, including for current firefighters and cops.
For the transportation tax measure on this August’s ballot, the city isn’t outright lying. Instead, it is relying on false impressions and misdirection.
Phoenix currently has a transportation sales tax of 0.4 percent that doesn’t expire until 2020. Proposition 104 would increase the tax to 0.7 percent and extend it to 2051.
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