Your Local Government Has Two Favorite Lies
Every con needs good branding. Local government in Georgia have two: “continuation” and “rollback.”
There are two glaring ways your local government lies about taxes. One happens every few years. One happens every summer. Both use the same playbook: make a tax increase sound like anything but.
That SPLOST on your ballot? The one you’re being asked to “continue”? That’s the first con.
When these sales taxes sunset in Georgia, they vanish—your sales tax rate drops by a full penny per dollar. State law makes clear SPLOSTs are time-limited voter approvals that end completely and require brand new referendums to restart.
You’re not voting to preserve or continue something. You’re voting to impose a fresh six-year tax.
But “Vote Yes for a Brand New Tax” doesn’t test well with focus groups. “Vote Yes to Continue” does. So that’s the word officials use to explain why you really, truly need this.
It’s not technically false. It’s just deliberately designed to mislead you and distract from actual consideration of the merits of the proposed projects.
The annual property tax “rollback” rhetoric is the second scam and worse. Every summer, local governments hold hearings few attend. Then at the end of the process they announce they’re “rolling back millage rate(often to some historic low)”—seemingly showing restraint, demonstrating responsibility. Yet often, your tax bill goes up anyway.
Here’s what they don’t say: there are three options for setting millage rates. Raise taxes. Keep them flat. Or cut them.
In five years across our area, exactly one government entity has actually cut taxes: Catoosa County Commission this year. One cut. Five years. Dozens of opportunities across multiple jurisdictions. Instead general property taxes across the area and state have risen steadily over the past few years. But try and find the explicit statements announcing the less than full rollbacks increase taxes.
A “rollback” that raises your bill isn’t a rollback. It’s a tax increase wearing a disguise. They’re just raising it slightly less year after year—then congratulating themselves for restraint while your payment climbs.
Call it what it is. When officials rename a new tax a “continuation,” that’s gaslighting. When they call a tax increase a “rollback,” that’s gaslighting. When the entire public communication strategy is designed to make you feel like you’re keeping something instead of authorizing something new—or getting relief when you’re getting a bill increase—that’s institutional gaslighting.
And it works. Because most people don’t read the fine print. Because “continuation” sounds responsible and “rollback” sounds like savings and nobody has time to decode bureaucratic doublespeak,
The disguise is the product. Remove it, and the sale gets harder.
Catoosa’s education SPLOST and Walker’s general SPLOST both fund legitimate worthy infrastructure and capital asset proposals. School roofs. Roads. Fire stations. Sales tax spreads the burden across everyone who shops here—including pass-through traffic—instead of crushing homeowners with property tax bombs.
Between a penny sales tax and a millage increase, the penny is the lesser evil.
Both measures will probably pass. I think they should.
But there’s a reckoning coming.
There will be a referendum—maybe this cycle or next—when the answer is no. Not because the need isn’t valid or doesn’t matter. But because voters eventually have to remind officials who actually works for whom.
To avoid that and the difficult times that would follow, officials today would be wise to do the following: Stop calling new taxes “continuations.” Stop calling tax increases “rollbacks.” Show itemized project lists and audited results from last time. Show fund ledgers with detailed spending reports.
Promise less. Deliver more. Just give it to citizens straight. Treat taxpayers like adults. But for God’s sake, stop with the propaganda, spin, and doublespeak.