HB 216
by state Rep. Alan
Seabaugh resurrects an additional occupancy tax for hotel rooms and
camping sites that voters thought they buried last year. Despite the
mumblings of policy-makers and their shills that this bill is “different,”
if there is any difference, it is in degree rather than kind: instead of
the two percent additional tax in last year’s Act 674, this time it’s just 1.5
percent, split equally among the same three entities, for a few years
shorter. Kind of like getting stabbed five times rather than shot six times.
Its proponents
offer the same
failing argument as heard last time, that by pumping roughly half a million
bucks a year each into the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission, the Independence Bowl Foundation,
and the Ark-La-Tex Regional Air Service Alliance, they will get funds to
promote the area as a place for sporting events, principally the
Independence Bowl, and facilitate this by having more flight choices, while
few residents (only the ones that for whatever reason rent rooms or go
camping) will pay for this with the costs almost exclusively foisted on
outsiders. And it suffers from the same weakness, asking local voters to
believe that there is a free lunch and to disregard that the increased cost
of rooms will act as a disincentive to attracting events or travelers, with
the consequential loss of area jobs directly and indirectly.
Also like last
year, lost in the shuffle will be whether these three entities deserve any
extra funds. Doubt about that has not really changed in the interim. The
Commission’s parent Shreveport-Bossier
Convention and Tourist Bureau still
sits on a huge pile of unrestricted cash (and gets 80 percent of its
revenues from the existing four percent occupancy tax), so more cash won’t
make a difference in its level of success; the I-Bowl situation may be
worse than last year’s with the loss
after just one year of its latest title sponsor (the bill notes that if
an entity goes out of existence, the other surviving ones get its share)
and none currently in the offing so this may be good money after bad (the
game has a history of relying on public money to stay afloat, but not on a
recurring basis as this tax would provide), and Shreveport Regional Airport with
its high landing fees thereby continues to have among the highest fares
among airports its size, which is the real discouragement as to putting
it on a carrier’s or passenger’s itinerary.
Unfortunately,
the bill has made steady progress through the Legislature, with unanimous
passages throughout and now rests just a Senate vote away (and House concurrence
if necessary) to go to the governor, who signed last year’s version. Given
that it failed at the ballot box by only a couple of hundred votes, with the
much higher negative vote cast by Bossier Parish citizens who understood
the bill presented a much bigger boon to Shreveport determining the outcome,
and this version is for a smaller increase and shorter duration, these
special interests and their legislative allies (although significantly fewer
local legislators have signed up as authors for it this year than last) may
think this tax increase they can get enacted.
But less of a
negative is still a negative, and the Senate, and if necessary the governor,
should come to realize that relevant to this bill. Otherwise, the people
will have to say no again this fall.
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