Wednesday, 6 July 2005
Oklahoma Sales Tax Reform & Kenny Rogers Review
« Blog spam is responsible for the decline of god | Main | BlogPulse Update »In a follow-up to A Funny Thing Happened To Me This Morning On The Way To My Blog ..., Dan Galloway, City Manager of Bethany, Oklahoma and my Dad has forwarded his paper titled Local Sales Tax Law in Oklahoma: The "Donors" are Dying. He has also forwarded a conceptual overview of what Oklahoma municipal sales tax reform might look like which includes some examples of how it would affect 17 sample municipalities around the state (including Bethany, Oklahoma City and Tulsa).
According to Mr. Galloway's calculations, the City of Tulsa received nearly $64 Million in sales tax revenue annually from citizens that do not live in the City, cannot vote for Tulsa City officials and do not receive the direct benefit of this tax.
On a tangentially related note, my wife and kids and I went to Bethany yesterday for their annual 4th of July festival which includes a parade, carnival, free outdoor concert and fireworks. This year's performers were The Coaster (of "Yakity Yak" fame) and Kenny Rodgers.
I have to admit I went to see Kenny Rogers so I could make jokes about him later – however, the guy was phenomenal! A truly great performer. My favorite moment was when he announced the point in the show where he used to walk off the stage and down the steps and "pretend that he wasn't coming back". He said that he think encores are silly and he's getting too old to walk down the steps more than he has too so they were just going to finish playing the rest of the show. Mr. Rogers, I couldn't agree more.
The festival looked to be a huge success, I'd guess there were anywhere from 15,000-25,000 people there. They have it every year and it is scheduled to be one of the official Oklahoma Centennial Celebrations in 2007.
