Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs said the accomplishment he’s most proud of since assuming office in 2018 is his and his team’s work to avoid raising taxes for county residents.
Jacobs said that while it is becoming “more difficult” to construct a budget amid economic challenges resulting from decisions made at the federal level, his administration is “doing everything that we can to be creative and think outside the box” to avoid raising taxes.
“The thing I’m really most proud of is that we haven’t raised taxes here in Knox County for many years. For my first six years now, we haven’t raised taxes and I don’t plan on doing that,” Jacobs said on Thursday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, guest hosted by Aaron Gulbransen.
“It’s becoming more difficult to put together a budget because of what’s coming out of Washington, D. C. – all the inflation that the Fed is causing, in Congress with their spending and printing money – that does radiate down to local government. People may not think that, but it does. We have to pay more for everything as well. So that puts more pressure on us, but we’re doing everything that we can to be creative and think outside the box so that we don’t burden our people here by paying more taxes,” Jacobs added.
Jacobs went on to note how Knox County is “in the market for good talent,” which is another motive for keeping taxes from being raised, specifically when it comes to “fostering an environment which is friendly for business so that people can thrive.”
“Just like everyone else, when the price of gasoline goes up, that impacts us. When the price of diesel fuel goes up, that impacts us. When the price of asphalt and concrete goes up, that impacts us. We’re also, frankly, in the market for good talent. We have to make sure that our people are being taken care of or they’re going to go work someplace else. All of those things have a big impact,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs and Gulbransen, who is also the executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition and former Tennessee Star reporter, also discussed the mayor’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically how his policies differed from leaders in other areas of the nation.
The mayor, noting how the pandemic was “exploited” by “power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats,” emphasized how Americans must remember the “government overreach” that took place during the health crisis moving forward.
“COVID was a serious public health issue. There’s no doubt about that. But I do believe that in many parts of the country – not so much here in Tennessee – it was exploited by power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats who just wanted to expand their fiefdoms. Like up in Michigan, you have Gretchen Whitmer just making these arbitrary decisions about how you can’t go to a feed store and buy seed and you can’t go out on your boat – meanwhile her husband is out on his boat. That was the kind of stuff that just drove me crazy. Ultimately, there is no ripcord on the U. S. Constitution. The rights that the Constitution protects, that’s always enforced. The idea that ‘Oh, this is so bad that we have to jettison the Constitution and forget about the Bill of Rights,’ that’s what makes us America. If we ever lose that, we will cease being the greatest country on the planet,” Jacobs said.
“So I do think that it’s important for people to remember going forward what this sort of government overreach means. What always happens is the government ends up scaring people, and saying, ‘We need this power to keep you safe.’ The problem with that is, who keeps us safe from the government? That’s a question that our Founding Fathers answered very well by saying it’s the people that do that. These rights that God has given us, not the government, they’re endowed by our Creator. We’re endowed with them by our Creator. They can never be taken away,” Jacobs continued.
“It’s during a crisis when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are most important because that’s when we’re threatened the most,” Jacobs added.
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Glenn Jacobs” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
