Like hogs suddenly nudged out of a trough, politicians and bureaucrats statewide are trying to portray “revenue neutral” as a cockeyed scheme that gums up everything.

True, legislators should have taken a cue from Florida and named things better. There, notices list what you paid last year, what you’d pay this year if your government wasn’t proposing any change in how much taxpayer money it claims, and finally how much more of our money government plans to spend for us while claiming no tax increase.

Pointing out how ever-expanding government hides behind deceptive numbers like “mill levies” is worthwhile. We shouldn’t let politicians and bureaucrats sabotage it by blaming legislators for one of the few good ideas they had.

— ERIC MEYER