August 23, 2007 Issue

So you say you’re a Republican? In our area that puts you in a comfortable majority of 75 percent of your neighbors. It is always a good idea to re-evaluate your priorities on all levels from time to time. This might be a good time to review your personal allegiance to your chosen political party.
This is certainly happening on a national level. Our country is becoming more ethnically diverse by the day. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities are rapidly becoming the majority in our largest urban areas.

While the face of America is changing, the look of the Republican Party has gone retro. Last week Frank Rich wrote, ”Far from looking like America, the G.O.P. caucus, like the party’s presidential field, could pass for a Rotary Club, circa 1954.”

A recent N.Y. Times-CBS News poll discovered that the number of young people who consider themselves Republicans is 25 percent, down from 37 percent in the 1980s. And only 24 percent of Americans want abortion outlawed.

Closer to home, our county has the highest percentage of Republican voters in the state. We have had total Republican domination for more than 20 years. We have listened to the Republican mantra of lower taxes and less government until we have become numb.

Can you blame Republicans for our local problems? Well, you sure as hell can’t blame Democrats.
Our self perpetuating Tourist Development Council, a quasi-governmental agency overseen by our county commissioners and fueled by bed taxes is a joke. The mortgage on the Emerald Coast Convention Center is more than $800,000, and it will be paid for in 25 years. It only loses a little over $2,000,000 a year. What a bargain.

The TDC spends 59 percent of its revenue on advertising. My businesses spend less than 1 percent. The TDC deserves little credit for our tourism development. But even if you want to give the TDC some credit, can’t we all agree that tourism is now fully developed. The TDC can go away now. Except it can’t. Not, at least, until the mortgage is paid off. So, like a tick, the TDC is embedded in our county for another 25 years.

The Economic Development Council is funded in part by local government and it is charged with creating new jobs in our area. Well, we’re going halfway around the world to fill our current employment needs with workers from Russia, Jamaica, China, Korea, Bosnia, and Herzegovina (wherever that is.) And still the signs are out all over town begging for employees. We don’t need anything creating more jobs in our area until we have enough local people to fill them. The EDC can go away now.

We’ve got CRAs and EDCs and TDCs. We’ve got higher taxes and new levels of government with acronyms that we don’t even recognize. We have legalized fraud perpetuated by the insurance companies.

We have a majority of our ad valorem taxes paid for by non-resident, second home owners who don’t burden our schools with their children, yet we’ll still be holding a car wash next week to pay for my daughter’s cross country uniform.

All of the components of our chaotic, local real estate collapse have been created without a Democrat in sight — much less in office.

Run with your less government and lower tax rhetoric all you want. I believe that even in our isolated, conservative enclave, people have had enough.

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