Higher, not Lower Overall
In a story of how the City Council voted for a higher water usage rate for the city, the Abilene Reporter News published the following sentences:
"Abilene's current rates are the lowest of 10 Texas cities that are usually compared to Abilene. When the new rates go into effect, Abilene will remain in the lower half of the 10 cities."
What this excerpt does NOT say is that the Abilene citizen pays an OVERALL tax rate that is HIGHEST among these ten cities. So, who cares if the water bill is lowest if all else is high enough to bring my overall tax bill to an excessive level? Are we willing to accept the fact that nine other cities just like us have found less expensive ways to live? Are we willing to continue paying for all manner of services (and to tolerate wasteful spending) year after year?
Please voice your displeasure to your selected city council member.
"Abilene's current rates are the lowest of 10 Texas cities that are usually compared to Abilene. When the new rates go into effect, Abilene will remain in the lower half of the 10 cities."
What this excerpt does NOT say is that the Abilene citizen pays an OVERALL tax rate that is HIGHEST among these ten cities. So, who cares if the water bill is lowest if all else is high enough to bring my overall tax bill to an excessive level? Are we willing to accept the fact that nine other cities just like us have found less expensive ways to live? Are we willing to continue paying for all manner of services (and to tolerate wasteful spending) year after year?
Please voice your displeasure to your selected city council member.
posted by Cole @ 6:55 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:07 AM,
laura g said…
as a statistics nerd, i love to see them used well and hate to see them used to mislead readers. misleading is the more common use, it seems.
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