More thoughts on the Winston-Salem Journal article and the Stokes County budget

Sandy McHugh adds:

The problem with news reports, as you know, is that they ask you a question and then print your answer without the question. She had asked me if I agreed with lowering the tax rate to 54 cents. My answer was to that question. The problem is that the schools are getting almost a million dollars more than last year and I can't get ANYONE to agree to cut ANY of it. The school increase, the cost of gas increase, mandated increases and inflation account for about all the increase in the county budget. I've made motions to cut a whole host of things. Some of them passed and some of them didn't. It's really easy to say I'll only vote for a budget that has a tax rate of X if you never say how you're going to get the budget to X. We went through all of their suggestions for cuts last night. They all passed and yet they didn't even get the tax rate down to 61 cents. The point is, getting the tax rate down is good if you do it with cuts to excess. If you just slash away with no regard to what you are doing, that isn't good. My biggest problem is that I'm not a politician and I'm no good at making political statements that make me sound good. I just tell the truth.