Cris Mooney A Personal Web Page The Regional Renaissance Initiative   Please use your browser "back" command to continue.

Last Updated Oct 26, 1997 There are many other issues. Of course, the legislation also raises many other questions. But after lengthy analysis, I consider the straight forward "tax" and "spend" issue to be the most important. However, each time I consider one of the other issues, I find myself farther from voting for the new tax. Here are a few items to consider: Some claim they don't ever get a chance to decide how tax money is spent, so they want to take this opportunity to say they want a stadium. To me this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. It is far more important to withhold the money, than to make some weak attempt to direct the spending. Why is almost 20 percent of this bill (about 17 pages) legislation changing previous legislation? Do the authors of this bill think that our fathers had no clue what they were up to? No, the bill is so outrageous it flies in the face of all kinds of previous legislation. The tax is NOT limited to 7 years. Since the "authorities (committees)" in control of the taxes will be able to float "bonds (loans)" that run up to 20 years, unpaid debt will extend beyond the seven years. Where do you think the money is going to come from? It will be taken from other tax income, or an extension of the current tax, effectively continuing the tax forever. This IS a stadium tax. Between 56% and 66% of the tax MUST be used for stadiums. 28%-33% for Football, 28%-33% for Baseball. No more than 50% of the stadiums will be paid for from this tax. So what? Money will be taken from other taxes to pay the balance. Does it really matter where the money comes from. Where do they think this other tax money comes from? Other projects will be stalled, and new taxes will be added to cover the missing money. In fact, 75 million in taxes, previously being held back from stadium construction has now been released by Spector. This can be used regardless of other funding. It goes on and on. I don't have the time to list the number solid reasons this bill is bad.However, many items are covered in the grass roots campaign's "vote no" web page.