Yesterday, Warford proposed delaying the vote to raise the city’s sales tax another 1%, barely ten days after he first announced his intentions to raise the tax. It’s not that he’s changed his mind on raising the tax, but rather postponing it until next year.
Warford stated that timing may be poor because the “recession has come to Bismarck”. What happened within a week that convinced him that the recession has finally come to Bismarck? It wasn’t Bobcat’s closure, because that came almost an entire week before. How could he (and other local politicians) not have realized this ten days ago, before proposing a sales tax increase, when I’ve been predicting Bismarck’s economic woes since last year.
This sudden change in opinion is more likely a reaction to the negative feedback generated by the original announcement, than it is a sudden realization that the recession’s affecting Bismarck.
Read my original blog about this topic here:
http://www.bismancafe.com/blogs/?p=259
Read my January 2009 blog predicting how the recession would affect Bismarck here:
http://www.bismancafe.com/blogs/?p=245
