Fresno Mayor Alan Autry has a penchant for over-statement, and his announcement that he won't pay his income taxes until the San Joaquin Valley gets water for its farmers can be put in that category. My column today examines Autry's statement and wonders if there's really a Bad Bubba or if it's an act.
Autry says the lack of farm water in this drought is part of a grand conspiracy by the state and federal governments to harm the Valley. The fact that there are many reasons for the water crisis doesn't seem to strike a chord with the mayor, who is in his last few months in office. He likes to cast blame, and don't bother him with suggestions that there may be more to the issue than he acknowledges.
My cash is it being a stunt!
Mayor Autry is no Willie Nelson, and am quite sure that if he does not pay the tax man, they will come after real fast. Not good for an elected officail to encourage ordinary folks to not pay taxes.
Who would have guessed, Ronald Reagan is a personal hero to the mayor? He would be well advised to follow the example of his hero, and try walking the 'high road' instead of pandering to the folks, like a touring actor in a badly written play.
Perhaps MOI will take the personal letter out of the vault and let Mayor Autry salavate over it, ONLY if he pays his taxes!
I think he will pay his taxes one way or another. Joan Baez, the icon of the anti Viet Nam war resistance, according to her biography, routinely withheld from her taxes that percentage that went to the war; and the authorities just as routinely went to her bank account and confiscated the money owed.
The difference is that Joan Baez was vilified for her believes, but Bubba wants to turn into a noble civil disobedience for the Conservative element. There is a proverb in old Platt Deutsch (Lower German)
What is an owl to one may sound like the nightingale to another!
Our bold mayor must be channeling Henry David Thoreau in his famous 1849 essay, "Civil Disobedience". Thoreau was miffed about the Mexican-American War, so he went to jail while staying on Waldon Pond rather than pay property taxes. His maternal grandfather launched the first authentic student protest at Harvard in 1766. It was called the "Butter Rebellion", the first in the Americas. If His Honor is going all the way, I suggest a few other things to show, in righteous protest, "a-la-Thoreau":
-Boycott coffee at your favorite shop. You can call it the "Starbuck's Rebellion".
-Use your hands-not-free cell phone while driving as you call in to update Judge Wanger as required in the homeless settlement.
-Leave your trash cans at the curb all week long.
-Water every day and not every other day (At home, too, not just City Hall).
-For dramatic effect, you should also refuse to eat your spinach.
One further bit of advice. Stay in jail for at least a month, maybe the last 30 days in office. Thoreau's aunt bailed him out after one night......so no fair doing a Paris Hilton.
My guess is that he has already payed them since they would have been due in April. Surely the budget will pass before they are due again. If he is required to make estimated payments and doesn't then he will be penalized for that.
Correction to Jackie's post: The mayor said he won't pay his income taxes if the Valley doesn't get water that farmers need -- not whether the Legislature will pass the state budget.
Sorry for the mistake but he has still had to pay his taxes for this year already and he will pay them again because he is not exempt from penalties just because he is Bubba.