Editor’s note: The Billings City Council will also be pushing for a local option sales tax during the 2015 legislative session. And while the proprietor of Last Best News is inclined to think such a tax has it advantages, we are pleased to offer this contrary view.
Jeff Gibson
Here we go again.
Missoula Mayor John Engen wants the Legislature to allow cities to let their citizens vote on whether to levy local sales taxes. Currently, only cities with populations below 5,500 that have a special dependency on tourists can do so. Engen apparently wants a sales tax in every Montana city whose governing bodies want one. And you can take this to the bank: Once the option becomes available, every city father and mother in Montana will move heaven and earth to get one.
I met John Engen once. He seemed like a reasonable, likable, intelligent guy. But pot is big in Missoula, so what do you think John is doing these days when his office door is closed? You know darn well what he’s doing. What we have here is a case of reefer madness!
The usual explanations are offered for the Engen pipe-dream. An online news story said that “people come to Missoula for a drink and a meal, and it’s a tax-free experience.” And we all know how tourists complain about a tax-free experience. “This is not the Missoula experience I expected!” they protest. “At the very least, I should have been offered a tax-heavy experience!” What a bummer when a tourist can’t even find that out here in the wild and woolly West.
Besides, drinks already carry stiff alcoholic beverage taxes. And surely His Honor doesn’t intend to raise the price of meals. What is he trying to do, start a war against the poor, a war against the hungry? Or maybe it’s a diabolical plot to force Missoulians to eat less and lose weight. What could be more redundant in a city of emaciated, arugula-eating, marathon-running, transcendental-meditating, yoga-practicing, pot-smoking fanatics?
Another reason offered for a sales tax is that it would provide property tax relief. Yeah, but for how long? And if property taxes are as bad as they say, why don’t we just bag them altogether and go for a great, big sales tax? The state constitution limits the percentage size of a sales tax but we could always make ours the broadest in the land. If a little medicine is good, a lot is better, right?
Be afraid, be very afraid, when a smooth-talking city slicker starts pitching a new tax to lower your taxes.
A sales tax fight used to be part of every Montana legislative session. The last time a specific plan was sent to the voters, it was supported by Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. Somebody did the arithmetic and found that the plan would result in a net tax increase of $30 million for Montana taxpayers. Almost surely, that was just for starters. Montana voters gave the plan a Bronx cheer and an uplifted finger.
ALTERNATIVE NO. 1: One of the constant arguments for sales taxes in Montana is that tourists don’t pay their fair share. They don’t pull their own weight. They make crushing demands on public services. So address the problem at its source. Do something about the leeches. Abolish the state office of tourism promotion. Cancel those fiscally suicidal advertising campaigns that chambers of commerce use to invite tourists to visit Montana and leave it strapped. Put “Keep Out” signs at every port of entry.
Raise the existing sales tax on hotel and motel rooms to $500 a night.
All this would have immediate effects. The state and municipalities would have so much surplus from what they were spending to support those freeloaders that they could give some back to the taxpayers. They would not do that, I’m only saying they could.
And think of the windfall for businesses when they don’t have to hire so many employees to wait on tables and cater to the whims of out-of-state shoppers. Boom-town city, man. The state could close some highway rest areas and gas stations wouldn’t have to sell tourists so much fuel. Montana could reduce its carbon footprint, a mighty big deal for Missoulians like Sneaky John.
It would be—whaddya call it?—a tipping point, an inflection point, a new paradigm. A return to our agrarian roots.
ALTERNATIVE NO. 2: Adopt a seasonal sales tax, effective from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Make it 50 percent on everything. Montanans would have to time their larger purchases for the other nine months, but that’s not hard, unless they need heart surgery. They can stock up on food ahead of time.
Like I said, I have offered these proposals to the Legislature before. But they just don’t listen to me over there. They keep on doing the same old things, and things just go from bad to worse. But there has been one important change. In the past, it was the Republicans who led the charge for a sales tax (And maybe a few public unions who thought they’d get most of the money.)
Today, according to a news report, even the Republican speaker of the House says he doubts that the Republican majority would pass one. If the plan comes out of Missoula, the chances of passage by the current Legislature are, as a quantum physicist might put it, “vanishingly small.”
Now it’s the Democrats who want a sales tax. At least we assume John Engen is such. Who isn’t in Missoula? I guess it all depends on whose ox is being gored, or whose hogs are being slopped. Politicians are all alike, except the ones you vote for, who are not quite.
OK, full disclosure. I have a dog in this fight. I have skin in this game. I am on the cusp of middle-age, if you define average mortality as 200 years. I live mostly on a fixed income. The Federal Reserve put in the fix by assuring banks they could make money on my CDs while absolutely guaranteeing loss of value for me. This is hardly the fairness thing they always talk about in Washington. It is not the equality thing. It’s a rigged game that has gone on for years. And I can’t put all my money in stocks. With my luck, they’ll drop before I do.
If nothing else sways you, John, consider this. My kids and grandkids all live in Missoula. If your plan passes, I won’t be able to see them as often. I won’t be able to spend as much time in your town. I sure as hell won’t spend any money there.
So I’ll make you a deal. Until now, when people have asked me where my children live, I’ve always looked at my shoes and mumbled something about, “Western Montana.” But if you’ll abandon your sales tax plan, I will look these people straight in the eye and shout out the truth. “They’re Missoulians! They live in Missoula!” (“Sob!”) I can do no more.
Jeff Gibson was born in Livingston and worked at the Billings Gazette as a young man. He retired from the Montana Standard in Butte, where he now lives. Gibson is the author of two novels: “Last Rites of Passage,” which he calls a coming of old-age story, and “Outlaws,” a story of love and money in the New West. Digital versions of both are available on Kindle and other readers, and hard copies through Amazon.
