Norfolkan finds inspiration from Ron Paul, Founding Fathers – Norfolk Daily News

Bruce Finley wasnt always interested in politics in fact, he once thought of politics and government as terrible, boring, uninteresting and unengaging.

That is no longer the case, as Finley has made his name as arguably Norfolks biggest outspoken critic of tax-increment financing.

Finley often attends Norfolk City Council meetings, particularly those that feature proposals relating to tax-increment financing (TIF) on the agenda. He regards TIF as a tax break for the wealthy and a handout for the purpose of getting them to improve their property.

TIF is used by the city council to take advantage of the downside of using property taxes in order to selectively pick winners and losers in the local economy, raise property taxes and look really good in the public's eye, Finley said. This fulfills most of the things the city council wants as long as the public never looks under the surface, or checks under the hood, or tries to understand how things really work.

Of course, there are other perspectives of TIF, too including that it is about the only tool a city or county can offer to help spur development and economic growth, which leads to increased property valuation and increased property tax revenue.

Finley doesnt reserve his criticism for TIF alone.

Direct confiscatory taxes like property taxes and income taxes were illegal until we passed the 16th Amendment, Finley said. We literally implemented one of Karl Marx's 10 planks of Communism right out of his Communist Manifesto as an amendment to our Constitution, and no one even talks about it.

Finleys views on TIF and other forms of taxation are heavily influenced by Ron Paul, a former presidential candidate and Republican congressman from Texas who is now a member of the Libertarian Party.

Finley, however, considers himself a political independent.

George Washington included in his farewell address a great discussion about political parties that is still very relevant today, Finley said. He points out that the spirit of party is the worst enemy of the many monarchies of his time, but an elective government with parties is not immune to becoming a frightful despotism.

While Finley has libertarian leanings, he is not a supporter of the party itself.

Libertarian Party politics are in direct violation of much of their libertarian views and principles as they covet such funding so strongly instead of opposing it when it clearly selectively supports the growth of two parties over all others, Finley said. This is a perfect example of money dictating the party's position instead of the party expressing the views of those it is meant to represent.

Besides Ron Paul, Finley cites George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin as inspirations for his political views.

They have done the most to teach me about what goes into the science of government design, Finley said. The Founding Fathers sought to teach us all everything there is to know about what makes a good government that serves the people well and what makes a bad government that seeks to rule the people and control every aspect of their lives.

Finleys interest in politics and government was spurred by a pair of events. One was his discovery of many online sources of information about the subject.

Once I started searching on the internet and getting my news from there, I was able to find ultra-informative articles every day that I could really sink my teeth into that had more cited sources than you can shake a stick at. Being able to click a linked cited source and instantly read it really is amazing when it comes to informative news and discussion, he said.

Another was the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which contained provisions authorizing the indefinite military detention of civilians, including American citizens, without habeas corpus or due process.

(That was) what convinced me that I needed to commit to getting 100 percent active and involved, Finley said. It is my duty to my country, and all the people of the world, to help get people more informed to defend what should be universal rights and liberty everywhere.

Finley sees excessive taxation and the 2012 authorization act as examples of erosions on rights and civil liberties driven by big government and big business. He also refers to the corporate-government-banking collusion as a cancer.

Without our rights, we cannot protect ourselves from the corruption of big government, Finley said. This leads to big business and corporations lobbying for and buying up government power so that they can use it to destroy their competition in the marketplace and set up trusts between themselves and other collaborative monopolies to increase their profits as much as possible.

Finley also is opposed to recent trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization.

One-sided trade deals ... cripple our economy by making the markets extremely unfair for us, Finley said. How can we compete with the Chinese de-industrializing sweat shop slave goods when our businesses are forced to pay our workers a minimum wage?

At the end of the day, Finley would like to see other citizens getting more involved with local government.

People don't really bother to do their duty to hold their government accountable for its actions when they have an OK house, a nice family and a job that pays the bills with a football-game distraction on their TV, Finley said. How do we get them informed and involved?

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Norfolkan finds inspiration from Ron Paul, Founding Fathers - Norfolk Daily News