I’m not complaining here but it looks like, for whatever reason, the M&T tax repeal bill didn’t make it out of the House appropriations committee. This despite the fact that the chair of the Finance committee introduced this bill. This is the guy who is a representative from VA. Beach. Wonder how he would feel if someone introduced a repeal of the hotel tax….bet it would be an outrage…:)
I was contacted by a reporter today and he asked me about my position on the bill and I indicated that I didn’t want to see the tax repealed or altered. It is worth $5million/year to the city. He then asked me an interesting question: “do you think that your position is very “Republican”? My reply was two-fold:
1. We negotiated substsantial discounts with our current M&T tax payers. We’ve discounted over $5million over the years. That’s pretty aggressive.
2. I further replied that I wasn’t sure it had much to do with republican vs. democratic as I am still responsible for public infrastructure, policing streets, putting out fires, rescuing people in distress and educating children. For local government officials, these are not abstract ideas. I live here. My kid is in the schools. I assure you it is very real and the residents of Manassas don’t expect that any of these services will get cut more than they already have. In addition, the City faces an increasing number of unfunded mandates from Richmond and Washington with each passing year…..you can’t have it both ways and my priority is trying to maintain the services that benefit the residents of Manassas.
In any event, I am glad the bill appears to have died. Let’s hope they don’t manage to drag out of the grave….until next year.
