Curmudgeon's Corner

1/10th Of 1% Doesn't Sound Like Much...

Posted by Al Campbell on June 2, 2008

Economy, Political, Quality of Life, Taxes, Wisconsin

A brief article appeared in the Journal Sentinel this morning discussing the money received by the Miller Park stadium district from its share of the five-county sales tax collections.  We've always heard about that expressed as 1/10th of 1%, and that makes the tax seem smaller, at least to me as I briefly process the sentence that I read.

After all, that is only a penny for every $10 spent in the five county area set aside to pay for Miller Park.  I was, by the way, not opposed to that cost sharing just to set the record straight.

The month of March generated a $2,197,487 payment to the stadium district based on that penny per ten dollar sharing level.  That is a lot of money sucked out of the economy especially when we are in the midst of the cost increases we're seeing for most everything due to the price of fuel that ripples through almost every segment of our economy in the form of increased prices.

This really hit home when I recalled that there has been talk about extending the stadium tax beyond the 'sunset' date in 2014.  Then I learned that the 2014 date was never formally established as the final year in which we would all pay toward the costs of Miller Park through our general sales tax contributions.

There is way too much truth involved in the saying that when a tax is established, it never goes away.  We recently saw Mayor Barrett seeking to continue and even increase the cell telephone tax paying for development of cell 911 coverage.  He wants to use that for something else totally unrelated to cell phones. 

Now financial consultants to the stadium district say that the tax may need to be continued beyond 2014.  Does this ever end?  Not unless we demand that it end.  And, we can apparently only be heard through our use of the vote.  Yet another reason to protect the sanctity of our votes through the implementation of voter photo ID.

And, yet another reason to end the creation of taxing districts that are run by boards appointed and not elected.  The stadium district board is comprised, as I recall, of elected representatives so the voter ultimately can have some influence, but too many taxing districts are impervious to the desires of the voters (such as MATC).