Back when the price of oil was bouncing either side of $100 per barrel the sales tax revenue was pouring in, and the city council was licking its lips over the prospect of playing Santa Claus with all that money for them to spend.
Fast forward. Now the price of a barrel of oil is bouncing around $30, and the tax collectors are looking at steep declines in revenue. For the tax spenders, it's complicated by the upcoming expiration of a portion of the local sales tax. Read all about it in this morning paper article which describes the council's confusing and desperate effort to get voters to approve the extension of the tax.
Unfortunately, all they seem concerned about is keeping the tax in place for another 10 to 25 years. They never considered the possibility that the voters could benefit from keeping the money themselves. Are the voters in Midland, Texas, fiscally liberal even in hard times? We shall see.
BTW, isn't it interesting that they didn't plan the vote to occur at the same time as the presidential primary? What a loss for taxpayers. Wouldn't it be grand if all those Donald Trump supporters showed up at the polls and put a big kibosh on the tax? Yes. Yes it would.
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