. . . incompetence explains most of what you need to know about . . .
. . . the Houston Chronicle editorial board.
A sad example of incompetence is "Tax Dodge: Oil firms need to pay a fair share," September 8, 2014.
Assume (heroically) there's a point to the editorial and assume the point is rightous. The problem is not the game plan but the execution -- the incompetence.
Let's review some facts.
Texas uses property taxes to help finance local school districts.
Texas law dictates what property is taxed and what is exempt, how the taxable property is appraised for tax purposes, how the tax rate is set, and how the tax is levied and collected.
Under Texas law, special-purpose government entities do the appraisals. Locally, it's the Harris County Appraisal District. Say what you will about the district, it's more professional and more consistent than what came before. In the old days, each taxing district made its own appraisals.
Taxpayers must pay what they owe. If they do not, the school district can sell the property and take what is owed.
Taxpayers are not obligated to pay more than they owe. They have recourse to law to protect themselves from abuse: for instance, if exempt property is taxed, if the appraisal is excessive, or if the tax rate is higher than the law allows.
Like a lot of other things, the Texas property tax system is imperfect, both in conception and in execution. It works well enough, however, and is broadly accepted as a way to pay a share of the costs of running local schools.
Fair enough.
Now comes a cruel assignment for you. Chop your way through the thicket of editorial hysteria and tell me which step of the process outlined above is at issue and what the taxpayer in question is doing that is legally or morally wrong.
What's wrong with this picture: A [read a, lower case; what follows is not a sentence] Fortune 500 company with $1,000-an-hour lawyers and expensive appraisal consultants suing a school system that serves at-risk kids? Marathon Petroleum Corp. is the most recent in a string of petrochemical companies to use a legal loophole to seek a lower property appraisal and, thus, to lower its tax bill. If successful, Texas City Independent School District will have to repay the company millions of dollars -- funds that would otherwise have gone toward educating students.
Point of Incompetence No. 1" The editorial never says, except in a general way, what the problem is. Why does the company believe it is being overcharged? What are the facts? What does the law say? Is the company right or wrong?
The Chronicle is welcome to argue that the company is wrong, but get this: It never does. It all-but-concedes, in fact, that the taxpayer is using "a legal" tax "loophole." In simple English: The taxpayer is (or may be) right.
Point of Incompetence No. 2: The Chronicle never describes the "loophole," loophole being a pejorative term for a tax exemption or deduction or limitation that the writer dislikes. What exception or deduction or limitation is causing all this trouble? Not for mere readers to know. Sayeth the editors: Trust us; it's, you know, a "loophole."
Point of Incompetence No. 3: The Chronicle attacks the wrong target -- the taxpayer rather than "loophole" and the legislature that created it. Let's assume the editors are right. Maybe the "loophole" is bad tax policy. If so, demand a change in the law. As an after-throught, the Chronicle does this, finally, near the end of the editorial. But this should have been the lede. We mere readers cannot reasonably agree that the "loophole" needs change, however, because, darn it, we don't know what the "loophole" is.
Point of Incompetence No. 4 (attributable largely to ideological blindness) is that lacking good facts and a good argument, the writers substitute name-calling, stereotyping, and scapegoating. This editorial employs the corporate equivalent of an ad hominem argument, condemning or mocking irrelevant characteristics of the company rather than engaging the real issue.
A Fortune 500 company. Remind me what's wrong with this? Nothing, of course, but the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle has have little but disdain for capitalism and successful capitalists. They're 1 percenters, y'know. And nothing says capitalism and success more dramatically than Fortune 500. This is Occupy Wall Street stuff, not grown-up stuff.
With $1000-an-hour lawyers. How does the Chronicle know what the company is paying? And what business is it of the Houston Chronicle how much the company pays? And if the Chronicle doesn't know and has no business knowing, why say it? How does this fact, if it is a fact, relate in any way the ultimate issue: what the law says? Good lawyers help make free markets work. One way is to counsel clients to obey the law. Another way is to defend clients against abuse by government. If the client's property is appraised at a value higher than the law permits, that's abuse. Occupysters think not. Adults know better.
Expensive appraisal consultants. Ditto.
A public school system that serves at-risk kids. The company and its warriors are contemptible creatures. The school district, by contrast, is angelic. It serves at-risk kids. Of course, it does. It also serves kids who are not at risk, teachers, administrators, teachers, coaches, bus drivers, makers of band instruments and football uniforms, and many more. Just as a corporate with high-priced lawyers serves employees, vendors, partners, and shareholders, among others. In the Chronicle's telling, a school name change is in order. How about Mother Teresa ISD?
Point of Incompetence No. 5: The editors never say plainly what they mean, which is that Marathon Petroleum Corp. should voluntarily pay more property taxes to Texas City Independent School District than the law requires.
The incompetence here is to demand that Marathon do what no person should be expected to do: pay more taxes than owed by law.
I speculate here, though with little risk of error, that not a single Houston Chronicle editor, not the Houston Chronicle, not the Hearst Corporation, not Saint Warren Buffett, not nobody ever voluntarily pays more taxes than the law demands.
Once the true proposition is stated clearly and honestly, the absurdity of the editorial is exposed. No arguments for an absurd proposition can possibly matter, but the Chronicle, undeterred, whales away.
Why volunteer to pay more taxes? Because the petrochemical industry is doing well. Because the Texas Legislature -- you know, the citizens of Texas acting through elected representatives -- doesn't give schools as much money as we would prefer. Because Marathon needs well-educated workers.
In other words: BECAUSE!
In other words: SO THERE!
The final point of incompetence is an ungrammatical sentence that turns on a phrase rendered meaningless by the body of the editorial: their share of taxes.
We need everyone to pay their share of taxes to fund those schools.
That's the question, isn't it: What is Marathon's share (or fair share)?
Here's a radical thought. It's what the law provides.
If the editors had been honest, the last sentence would have said this:
The Houston Chronicle (not we, whomever that might signify) wants (not needs) Marathon and other petrochemical companies (not everyone) to pay more than they owe (not their share) to fund (ugh, but never mind) Texas City ISD (not those schools).
Incompetence. Incompetence. Incompetence.
Two people need firing: one writer, one editor.
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