Editorial | GazetteLeader
At the onset of the pandemic back in 2020, just as local governments across the region were in the midst of their budget processes for the ensuing fiscal year, we swear we heard one elected official in a neighboring jurisdiction say her government wasn’t going to cut real-estate tax rates despite ever-rising home assessments because (and we’re paraphrasing as best we can remember) “the government needs the money more than the public does.”
It was certainly a brazen pronouncement, the product of both years of living within the local-government “bubble” in one-party Northern Virginia coupled with genuinely, if mistakenly, believing that government is the answer to the ills of the world.
No Fairfax County supervisors would be caught dead saying such a thing (at least until the public was out of earshot), but actions speak louder than words. And based on what we’ve seen so far when it comes to Fairfax’s fiscal 2025 budget, it looks like homeowners are going to be used as the government’s ATM even more than in the past.