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Ow! Quit twistin' our arms, already!

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published March 13, 2007

If the people of Pinellas County do not vote today to renew the "Penny for Pinellas" sales tax, the county will sink into the Gulf of Mexico.

If the Penny tax is not renewed, plague will erupt. Brimstone will fall from the sky. Social order will collapse. Pauly Shore will release another movie.

Old men will no longer reminisce. Children will no longer laugh. The parks will wither. The police will loot. The Nile will turn red. (No, wait. That was someplace else.)

This is the stuff coming from the local governments of Pinellas County, which have campaigned desperately (with tax dollars) to get the tax renewed through 2020.

And it is no wonder they are worried. The Penny for Pinellas, sold to voters in 1989 as a way to buy Extra Things, has morphed 17 years later into a capital piggy bank.

So make no mistake - if the Penny is not renewed today, almost $2-billion will disappear with a poof, along with plans for roads and bridges, parks and police stations, libraries and rec centers.

To which I ask, mustering as innocent a tone as possible:

Is that bad?

* * *

The first reason to vote to renew the Penny is the list of Good Stuff it will buy.

The second reason to renew the Penny is that sales taxes also are paid by visitors.

The third reason is that the money is raised and spent locally. There is no Washington or Tallahassee bureaucracy taking its cut.

The fourth reason is that we have to build at least some of this stuff no matter what, and have to pay for it.

This is direct local democracy at its finest. The question is simple: Do we want to tax ourselves to benefit ourselves?

* * *

The first reason to vote against renewing the Penny for Pinellas is that government spending has ballooned. Government will always spend as much as it has.

The second reason to vote no is that the Penny has changed from a focused tax for specific extras to a taken-for-granted pork-pot.

The third reason is that accounting of Penny funds has grown faster and looser.

The fourth is that the sales tax, although paid in part by nonresidents, is regressive, hardest on the poorest.

The fifth reason, advanced by the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, is that the Penny emphasizes "brick and mortar" projects over human needs.

The sixth is that the county and cities have rammed the tax down the voters' throats, with signs (they even tried to put them on polling places), and tax-funded campaigns, and threats. The election is being held in March, in hopes of a lower anti-tax turnout.

The seventh is that the county will do as it pleases anyway, as evidenced by its delay of decisions about the Brooker Creek Preserve until after the election.

I have listed seven "no" reasons and only four "yes" ones, but that doesn't matter. Maybe you will decide the "yes" reasons far outweigh the "no." If so, that's great.

The point is neither to swallow the government's propaganda, nor to cast a knee-jerk, anti-tax vote without admitting the serious consequences.

Howard Troxler now has a blog for updates, observations and reader comments. Check it out at www.tampbay.com by clicking on the "Blogs" link, or at the Web address blogs.tampabay.com/troxler.

[Last modified March 13, 2007, 01:36:34]