Mayor Hobbs was playing Coffee Politics when he compared a tax increase to a few cups of java.
The price of a cup of coffee is the metaphor of choice for elected officials trying to conceal and minimize the impact of a 3.5 per cent tax increase.
It’s been quite a while since that comparison actually worked.
Today, taking someone out for a cup of joe can eat up most of a ten dollar bill. More, for donuts or a refill.
I am not an old man (I just grumble like one) but I remember when a dime would buy a cup of coffee.
I was a kid waiting for my French fries in the BBQ restaurant at the loop in Westfort. A few adult patrons at the counter were complaining bitterly as they sipped their cups.
They were outraged because the next day the price of a cup of coffee was going from a dime to fifteen cents all over town.
Happily for me, the price of a small bag of fries was still a quarter but coffee was going up a whopping 50 per cent.
That was the beginning of a slow, relentless rise that eventually made coffee unaffordable for some and an expensive habit for others. It’s a lot like municipal taxes.
When the 3.5 per cent tax increase was proclaimed by city council I was saddened and dismayed.
Property owners continue to be treated as never-ending, inexhaustible cash cows.
That’s nothing new. We’ve been taxed into insensitivity and hardly even notice when city council grabs another handful of change from our coffee fund.
However, to be fair, we should take a closer look at those few cups of coffee to see what’s really happening.
I drink mine black but I don’t think that’s the way Mayor Hobbs and council take it.
They prefer the extra large, extra fancy drinks with lots of sweet syrup and whipped cream on top. Five or six of these every month could get expensive for taxpayers.
How expensive? Well, if you pick up a coffee every day on the way to work (avg. $1.38 per cup) you will spend about $14,000 over your working life. Add $11,000 if you read the daily paper.
That amount, properly invested, could yield almost $60,000 for retirement. If you prefer fancy beverages, the numbers go up accordingly.
One thing is clear –small tax increases can have a huge impact on personal finances over time.
It wouldn’t be so bad if we could just take council out for coffee and be done with it. But we know they will be demanding more next year and they might even want a donut to go with it.
Not only that, we are still on the hook for all those other “cups of coffee” that council has consumed in the past.
They needed a few cups for the fancy do-dads and showpieces at Marina Park. More will be needed for the pie-in-the-sky events centre.
You have to wonder how much coffee is left in the pot.
Unfortunately, until this year it seems that council forgot to use some of its coffee fund for badly needed infrastructure repair.
The result is a multi-million dollar infrastructure deficit.
According to Coun. Bentz, the 3.5 per cent tax increase “recognizes that we need to do more to maintain our infrastructure properly.”
Thinking taxpayers might want to ask why it has not been properly maintained before. Did council blow the coffee money on crullers and fancy drinks?
But regardless – taxpayers owe city council a few more coffees this month and every month as long as they own property in Thunder Bay.
