Food tax foes put pigs on wheels to fight the levy

No, that wasn't the prize-winning hog from the State Fair you might have seen on Durham streets yesterday.

Instead, it was a display from the opposition to the prepared meals tax -- driven by no less than Dallas Woodhouse, the Raleighite who leads Americans for Prosperity. AFP was identified in the Herald-Sun's reporting on the financial source of opposition to the food tax as being the main monetary source for opposition to the Durham levy referendum.

Our question: if Woodhouse is objecting to this tax as "pork" -- does that mean he'd support the levy if the funds all went to pay for law enforcement? What about if we raised property taxes to cover those costs? Inquiring minds want to know.

You can get your chance to hear straight from the mouths of opponents and proponents this evening, as Rob Teer Jr. and Woodhouse present pro's and con's on the measure at tonight's Inter-Neighborhood Council meeting, set for 7pm in the Herald-Sun's community room on Pickett Rd.

Comments

[Will]

Dallas also doesn't believe in Global Warming. And that we should leave the environment entirely to "FREE MARKETS" to work out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqfEBDb_LE0

[Don]

Will-Thanks for the link. AFP showed the balloon, the podium, the speakers but not the crowd. I wonder why? The debate should be interesting tonight!

[Tar Heelz]

Is Woodhouse a true ideological believer or what? What are his major sources of funding? Given the concentrated benefits of this tax, it wasn't difficult to predict which supporters of the tax would fund its campaign with their wallets. It's a bit more difficult to guess who would be paying for huge pig floats.

[Will]

@ Tar Heelz. American's for Prosperity was founded in 2003 with money from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Koch Industries = BIG OIL.

Koch Industries received a $30,000,000.00 criminal fine in March 2000:
"$30 Million Settlement Approved - ...$30 million in civil penalties and an additional $5 million in supplemental environmental projects to be funded by Koch. This is the largest penalty imposed on a company under federal environmental laws, and is based upon spills of at least 41,000 barrels of oil and other petroleum, resulting in over three hundred violations of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 in six states. The largest single spill was approximately100,000 gallons of crude oil which caused a 12-mile oil slick on Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Eroded and broken pipelines caused the spills. Six of the spills were into ponds, lakes and rivers." [1]
During the 1990s, the firm's faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a penalty of $35 million. In 1996, a flawed pipeline caused an explosion outside of Dallas in which two teenagers were killed. In a lawsuit related to the deaths, a trial court returned a judgment of $376.69 million against the company.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_H._Koch

[GreenLantern]

Just another right-wing-nut group from out of town wanting to change liberal Durham county. They don't care about PMT, they just want to rock the boat enough to slightly improve the chances of a Republican getting elected in this city/county. I wouldn't be surprised if Victoria Peterson or Steve Monk weren't behind all this. I guess Dr. Allison has finally lost her faculties enough to get fooled into fearing that the PMT will actually hurt the poor folk the DCABP supposedly represent. It's just a clever way to get her and her committee to get riled up during election time, with enough misinformation and fearmongering to succeed.

If you oppose the PMT because you don't like tax and spend, then focus on the SPEND part of the equation! This is a voluntary tax paid by people who can afford it, and by outsiders. It's quid pro quo versus Charlotte and Raleigh. When their citizens visit Durham we get a chance to get some of our money back that we spent in those cities/counties.

If the revenue were to be spent on law enforcement or helping the children, does anyone really think this thing would fail? As someone just posted, higher property taxes will be forthcoming, or some other tax increase or bond idea will be put to the voters if the PMT fails. As long as the spending is for something everyone likes, taxes will only continue to go up for everyone regardless of how individuals and interest groups they feel about where the money is being spent.

[Tar Heelz]

@Will,

Interesting. but...

@Green Lantern,

That's what I figured. I couldn't think of a good reason why Woodhouse or "big oil" would care two hoots about PMT in Durham Co.

[jacob]

I don't speak for any body else who voted against the tax--and I certainly don't support AFP. Strange bedfellows and all that. But I will say that I would have voted for the tax if the money had gone to the general fund--or basically anything else. A food sales tax that is going to build tourism attractions here struck me as silly and needless. I agree with proponents who say that people from out of the county who come here and use our services should help pay for them, and I'd even be willing to support a food tax to make them pay, but the money raised isn't going towards county services.

Again, I say that as an individual voter, one for whom the opposition of AFP weighed on the list of reasons to support the tax. I do wish that people who favored the tax had spent more time arguing for it an less time arguing against AFP.

[JDC]

How does one go about obtaining a giant pig? Is it just one of many anti-tax props AFP keeps handy? I get the feeling there's a whole other story here...

[Bull City Rising]

@JDC: You know what? You're right:

http://www.americansforprosperity.org/index.php?id=5696

There's the wiggly piggly drivin' through New Jersey.

Or, as Jim Wise put it in the N&O's blog: "Americans for Prosperity send the pig, named "Ten Pence," around the country to oppose tax increases and pork-barrel spending."