In our opinion: B&O and shrinkage
March 18, 2011 · 2:30 PM
After scaling it back and providing exemptions, the Bremerton City Council is considering the elimination of a tax on some businesses — the “B&O” tax — that contributes $2.6 million to city coffers.
Eliminating this tax, so the dogma goes, will encourage businesses to swarm into Bremerton. That people believe this is how the world works partially explains the popularity of pyramid schemes.
Meanwhile, the perennial idea to shrink the size of the nine-member Council is once again being trotted out. One reason for doing this, advocates say, is to save the city about $24,000.
If you are asking, at this moment, “Is this what they do with their time?”
The answer is: yes.
It may help to note that, in general, the residents of Bremerton don’t really care how many council members there are. In fact, the whole discussion is inside baseball, that is, of utter unimportance.
What Bremerton residents care about is what council members actually accomplish.
With these two proposals, the Council has accomplished something short of light entertainment.
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