| Vote Recommendation | Economic Freedom | Property Rights | Personal Responsibility | Limited Government | Individual Liberty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neutral | Neutral | Neutral | Neutral | Neutral | Neutral |
We have opposed expansions of the hotel occupancy tax that would allow tax dollars to be used for economic development and tourism opportunities that benefit private businesses directly or subsidize certain facilities which puts government outside it's proper role.
In the case of this bill, we find this does not expand the tax itself but expands what the tax may be used for to include a county (taxpayer) owned airport. For these reasons, we believe the bill has no direct connection to our principles and we remain neutral.
We further note that we oppose hotel occupancy taxes in the first place because they are designed to be used as a way to publicly fund economic development which should be done by the private sector industries that benefit from the development. If this bill were creating a new hotel occupancy tax or allowing that tax to be used for direct economic development purposes we would oppose it. Our neutral here is based solely on the fact that this bill allows an existing hotel occupancy tax in Marfa to fund improvements to a nearby county (taxpayer) owned airport.