Why tax certain industries to death?

The Issue: Senator Thomas Villagomez wants to increase user fees for the apparel industry, the only industry that works despite the current economic crisis.

Our View: This attitude depicts the shallowness with which certain lawmakers deal with substantive economic issues to our detriment.

There are lawmakers who are completely out of focus of major economic setbacks right here at home as to ignore the means by which more than 3,000 employees in both sectors bring home the bacon to their families.

The latest assault is a proposal by Senator Tomas Villagomez to increase user fees for the apparel industry here. It seems apparent that Senator Villagomez is one of those who subscribes to rearranging the fire so we don’t burn the fish on the grill.

The juvenile proposal to increase fees and taxes when the local economy is sliding further south into bankruptcy should be the signal indicator for all, including our illustrious lawmakers, to intervene with economic stimulus packages to kickstart the economy until such time that the private sector has rebounded to a healthy level.

So that we understand the complexity of chancing bankruptcy when the local economy is at the brink of zero revenue generation, let us assume that our leaders are doctors in the emergency room who must decide whether or not to operate on a hemophiliac. A hemophiliac is a patient who will bleed to death at the slightest use of the knife. Is it Senator Villagomez’s decision to proceed with a major operation on the hemophiliac patient so we voluntarily bleed him to death? This, Senator Villagomez, is the very crux of your proposal.

If anything, the tourism industry’s likely rebound to a level “as we know it” is as certain as the empty sense of acquiescence with which local leadership has dealt with the assault on the local economy by the Asian Crisis. Local leadership has been of great help to the private sector in these bad economic times basically saying “go ahead, make my day, sink or swim!” Is this your definition of the role of leadership, Senator Villagomez?

To chance any further proposals to tax businesses to death is to subscribe to the notion that it is perfectly fine to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Do you still want to ignore the economic hardship of the silent majority because you and local leadership have done nothing to guard and improve their economic lot? Or have you and local leadership found a substitute industry to replace both apparel and tourism industries? If so, could you please share it with the multitude? Nothing can be further from the truth!