By RICK NEBEL
Los Alamos

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money to spend.” –Margaret Thatcher.

“Democracy is the belief that the collective wisdom of a group of morons is better than the wisdom of a single moron.” –H. L. Mencken

I didn’t know which quote best applied to the Tuesday night Council meeting, so I have included both of them. I think they both apply. I ran into Ryn Herrmann, who I know and like, before the meeting and told her that I didn’t know why I bothered to come and speak at the Council meetings since they were going to ignore everything that I said and pass the GRT ordinances on a 6-1 vote. After reading Theresa Cull’s response to Thom Mason in the Post (link), it was obvious to me what was going to happen—they had already made up their minds how they were going to vote and the public comment section was a sham. They did the same thing for the wildlife ordinance. I called that vote correctly before it was taken as well. They passed the GRT on a 6-1 vote.

Since I knew how the vote was going to go, I decided to find out if the members of the Council had any principles or ethics about what was an equitable tax. So, I pointed out to the Council that the GRT is a regressive tax. It is “inequitable” in that it hurts low income and fixed income people the most. I suggested that the Democrats on the Council really needed to explain to their progressive constituents how they could vote for increasing a regressive tax. The answer I got back was basically that any tax that takes money out of the public’s pockets and puts it in the politician’s pockets is an equitable tax. They were not interested in that issue. I’ve had previous conversations with Christine Chandler, and she’s the same way. She just blows off anyone who disagrees with her.

It looks to me like the County Council has decided to play a game of “chicken” with LANL. The only problem is that the county is driving a Prius and LANL is driving a Semi. Sooner or later the “Golden Rule” (“He who supplies the gold writes all of the rules”) is going to come into play. Does the County Council seriously believe that the government gives a rat’s behind about the quality of life in Los Alamos? LANL seems to have no trouble enticing people to come here. This is not going to end well.