If You Build It...
Adding a movie theater to the downtown development mix seems like such a "no brainer." At last, plans are developing. When we first moved here in 1995, the symphony was the only thing happening at the Tennessee Theatre, and now we have concerts or something every weekend and vintage movies periodically (thanks to Ashley Capps).
All this has happened and Market Square has not even been "redeveloped" yet. Just imagine how many more people will come to a movie theater once the residential downtown plans are finished and the convention visitors come!
And hey, don't forget there's something that UT could do to spur downtown development—ban cars for freshman. Many colleges and universities do this as a standard practice.
Just think—thousands of freshman looking for entertainment just might ride the trolley to the nearby theaters and drop a few bucks at downtown establishments and then not have to drive home drunk. That could simultaneously solve some UT parking problems and prevent them from demolishing vintage homes to build ugly parking garages in historic neighborhoods. It sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Karen Dhyanchand
Knoxville
Tax Alternatives
Will Tennessee come to its senses? The article in the Feb. 21 edition of the Metro Pulse did a fine job of outlining the views of the politicians involved in Tennessee's current tax debate, but it raised many questions rather than answering this one. What can be gleaned from any of the numerous commentaries that have been published on the subject of tax reform as of late is that the current tax system in Tennessee is inadequate, at best, given the state's current level of spending. But, in my mind, it is not the inadequacy of our fiscal system that causes so much consternation—it is the feeble political wrangling which has allowed this inadequacy to perpetuate itself for so long now.
What the citizens of Tennessee, and more embarrassingly, the credit-rating agencies and other external stakeholders who have lost faith in Tennessee's fiscal system, have seen from our elected officials is the very worst of state government. The issue has gone beyond being a disagreement between conservatives and liberals, or "progressives" as they synonymously refer to themselves. The gridlock that has resulted from the consequences of this purely political discord will be paid for at the ultimate expense of the welfare of Tennessee's citizens.
The fact is that there are many options for reforming the Tennessee tax system that our legislative body will not consider for purely political reasons. One cannot deny the regressivity of a tax system based on sales taxes, while implementing a broad-based income tax simply has too little support among citizens right now. But these items have been parenthetically built up into a sort of antithesis, as if they were the only means of fixing the current problem. As this issue is to surely remain the political hotbed that it has become, some of the most obvious means of at least making the Tennessee tax system immediately better will not be considered in the near future.
Not the least of these is reforming state spending and more efficiently allocating state tax revenue to where it is needed the most. Another obvious measure is implementing a state lottery, which would prevent (by conservative estimates) at least a few hundred million dollars from going across state lines and funding the education of children in Kentucky, Georgia and Mississippi.
Other options, such as increasing taxes on more discretionary commerce, such as cellular telephone communications, wheel taxes, or gasoline, liquor and cigarette taxes, would help to mitigate the current situation without unduly hurting lower-income citizens. Wealthy households with two luxury cars, a giant SUV, and a cellphone for every member of the family would effectively pay more in taxes than poorer families without the need for taxing anyone's livelihood. The people in this state who are hurt disproportionately now from high sales taxes on all items including food and clothing are the same working families, in the lower to moderate income range, who would ultimately be hurt by a state income tax.
Perhaps it will take a change in governor, as the Metro Pulse article points out, to bring about any change in the current system. But hopefully, the next crop of fiscal managers will implement changes that work to the benefit of as many citizens as possible, not merely those that fit the political agenda of one party or the other.
Josh Carlon
Knoxville
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