“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that man behind the tree” — Senator Russell B. Long (D)- LA (deceased).
This is the premise behind the proposed convention center tax which is planned for the November ballot. Like the horrible SANDAG Sky Gondola Tax, promises will be made to every special interest group and the deal will be larded up with pork for them. The pork will be a reward for endorsement of the tax. Building Trades Council President Carol Kim acknowledged that when she said, “We decided to frontload homelessness dollars since it’s such a crisis right now.”
Mayor Faulconer wants to raise the Transit Occupancy Tax (TOT) and he wants the Republican Party of San Diego County and the San Diego Democratic Party to support the tax hike. The county’s political parties will (predictably) endorse this tax hike and act like every cartoonish representation of their party: Democrats will endorse the tax in exchange for promises of more union jobs and Republicans will endorse the tax because it’s “pro-business.”
The Mayor, the union members, and the Downtown crony capitalists will tell you three things:
1- The TOT is actually low when you compare it to Las Vegas.
2- The money will be “lockboxed” and not co-mingled with the general fund.
3- You don’t really pay for it.
If you are part of the “Taxed Enough Already” crowd (I am), you should oppose this. Republican politicians are not better stewards of tax dollars than are Democratic politicians. If they were, they would finance the convention center expansion from the existing TOT funds.
If you are a Republican Committee member, you should oppose this because it wrecks your brand. You can’t tell voters you are against the regressive gas tax but be for the convention center tax.
This is the SANDAG Sky Gondola Tax all over again and it won’t end well. Don’t support it.
Comments 1
I could stick a raft of other reasons on top of these… To start with, the City cannot even spend the money it already has. We have a stinking, hot mess of a bureaucracy at City Hall and feeding it even more money to waste on administrative bloat is no way to run a railroad. The problem of homelessness will not be solved until we re-arrange governmental responsibilities for things like housing and mental health.