Tallahassee Tea Party June 07-Nov 08

SlipperySlope - "Good Letter.  Guy is great. But, bed taxes are being used for improperly.  It's time to end the slippery slide toward funding charitable projects such as the 100 million dollar plus performing arts center."     Pace

Thank you David for writing to support the job Guy Thompson has done to promote Tallahassee area tourism.  He was promoting tourism long before he accepted the challenge of mixing politics and tourism.  Also, I thank the Tallahassee Democrat for printing your important letter.  Because of citizens like you and the Democrat’s willingness to print views that don’t support the EDITORIAL BOARD’S AGENDA .... I can always find something good in the Tallahassee Democrat.  I look forward each day to finding a great letter like yours.

To know Guy, is to know that he does a great job at anything he undertakes or goes on to do something else.  To me, your letter is super because it shows the importance of Guy's work prior to his current job.  Your letter shows the importance of free enterprise and our system of capitalism.  In 1607 - Jamestown, William Bradford and the settlers tried the commune system.  Communism did not work.  They then tried property ownership and free enterprise.  We got the American Way of Life.  The world has benefited because of free individuals, our American Way of Life, inventors, thinkers and workers such as Guy.  Unnecessary and excessive taxes are a deterant to incentive, freedom and our American Way of Life.

Fortunately, political AGENDA’S have not changed Guy.  I saw him promoting Tallahassee at the recent Leon County Veteran’s Day Parade.  He did not see me.  But, I saw him working his tail off.  Guy still has that spirit of self determination, personal responsibility and free enterprise that made America great and will save America from socialism.  The fact that taxpayers have been paying Guy for a few years has not changed him.

Some people change when they stop being a taxpayers and become taxtakers.  Guy has not changed.  Guy Thompson remains the best person for the area tourism job.

Here’s the problem.  The time has come to stop city, county, state and national tourism subsidies. (And a number of other grants, taxes and subsidies).  As I've told all Leon County Commissioners, the Mayor and Tallahassee Commissioners, “Bed taxes are on a slippery slope” and we need to stop the slide.  The pigs are now hogs  ...  too many snouts at the tax and grant trough.  

I opposed bed taxes in 1992 when I entered the hotel business.  I call the bed tax, the Baby Jesus Bed Tax.  I never thought it would be right to charge Joseph & Mary a tax as they visit Tallahassee on a family medical emergency, such as the birth of Baby Jesus.  In 2001, after discussions with the late Charles Wright and hospitality icon, Tommy Waits, I agreed to join the Tallahassee Area Convention and Tourism Board. 

I found some great people doing some great work and agreed to serve as Chairman.  During two years as Chairman, the political AGENDA’S of Commissioners began to inject themselves.  I met with Commissioner Rackleff.  He and others wanted to use hundreds of thousands of Baby Jesus Bed Tax to clean up Lake Jackson and proposed capital expenditures for minor league baseball for Tallahassee.

Such expenditures would not re-regenerate additional bed tax dollars for tourism marketing.  Such capital expenditures simply use the “seed corn” that should be used to promote tourism.  Seed corn should be used to put “heads in beds.” Heads in beds generate more bed tax revenue. Commissiones such a Bob Rackleff wanted to spend the "seed corn."

Eventually, in 2005, the AGENDA to spend the "seed corn" for capital expenditures rather than marketing tourism was achieved.  Passing any new tax simply starts a new slippery slope.  When the one penny tax was passed to support a 100 plus million dollar performing arts center the slope was greased.

Two years later, in 2007, the Tallahassee Democrat Editorial Board and most County Commissioners came back to the trough again.  They tried to double the bed tax for a performing arts center and support the estimated 2 million dollar per year operating loss .  According to the Editorial Board, there was no reason why every county commissioner should not support doubling the tax for the arts center. 

I believe in oue uniquely American Way of Life based on property rights, low taxes and free-market economics.  American success, ideas and wealth have benefited the entire world.  I am optimistic that citizens with conservative Christian values will begin to stand up for those values.  If we don't, our national and state motto, "IN GOD WE TRUST" will soon dissapear from our buildings and currency.

Thank you for taking a strong stand for Guy Thompson and writing a letter showing the importance of jobs, managers, mentors, freedom and free enterprise.  I personally think the Baby Jesus Bed Tax is a bad tax.  But, Guy is the best person for this job if he wants to keeping trying to negotiate the political mess.  The AGENDA of some commissioners and the Tallahassee Democrat is to get someone who will support spending the "seed corn."

We need more people and elected officials who will stand up for the American Way of Life and save the "seed corn."

Pace Allen, Jr., C.P.A., attorney, www.paceallen.us

Former Chairman of the Tallahassee Area Convention and Visitors Bureau

pace@taxteaparty.com       850.556.0709

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