A few years ago, I wrote to the Herndon Town Council advocating for a meals tax increase in the Town of Herndon. I was in my twenties then and had just started to show up to town council meetings. I really wanted the Council to invest in sustainability projects, and I kept hearing arguments that there wasn’t enough money and that the budget was very tight. As I learned more, I realized it was far more political than that.
Now a few years later, I’ve attended dozens of Town Council meetings, I’ve observed and researched how other municipalities have advanced sustainability projects, and I have run an unsuccessful campaign for Town Council centered around pursuing an ambitious sustainability agenda. What I’ve learned is that the Town is actually in pretty decent shape financially, and in fact, the Town of Herndon is doing a lot around sustainability and can do a lot more without a tax increase.
The simple truth about the Town of Herndon’s financial situation is that it made less money over the past year from its traditional revenue portfolio than it usually does. The Town Councilmembers that are wet behind the ears and the ones that are probably starting to have trouble hearing took the words “unfunded priorities” as an indication that the Town was in dire need of a tax increase.
But, everyone in the town and in the country should know that every year there are unfunded priorities. There are always things that we want to do, that we can’t fund. This makes sense, because the government does not have an unlimited budget, and some things will always be lower priority than others.
Does it make sense to increase the Meals Tax or any tax in order to fund unfunded priorities? No. There will always be unfunded priorities. In my humble, but accurate, opinion, this increase in the meals tax is a political stunt curated by the newest members of the Town Council. If you were paying attention to the Herndon Town Council election last year, you probably saw this Meals Tax increase coming from a mile away.
The increase in the meals tax rate in the Town of Herndon is the direct result of the candidates the Town voted for this past November. I suspect taxes in Fairfax County will continue to increase over the next few years as the mindless blue wave washes over Northern Virginia. My hope is that after our national politics cool down in a few years, our local politics will return to reason instead of this ridiculous political theater.
Joseph Plummer
Herndon