The Morning Line - NoTax4Tracks

$5 a month or 17 cents a day?

They are wrong. And, their own numbers show it. Here’s how:

Beginning in 2018 with that first .5% increase, you will pay 76 cents a day, or $23 a month.

In 2023, with the 1% sales tax increase, the daily cost to everyone in the county will be $1.71, or $52 a month.

Start with the 2023 sales tax collection from page 54 of the Let’s Move Nashville Report ($225,564,000).
Take the tax revenue burden carried by Davidson County, at 80% according to the. U.S. Census American FactFinder[1] ($180,451,000).
Divide by the number of County households expected in 2023 (assuming a 1.07% growth rate from six-year data), 289,830.

$225,564,000 x .80 = $180,451,000 ÷ 289,830 = $623 per household in 2023

The cost per household = $1.71 a day, or $52 a month

We found it highly amusing that Mayor Briley said yesterday Nashville would “Fail” if the $9-billion light rail plan doesn’t pass. He’s so serious. But think about the absurdity of that statement.

Fail? With everything Nashville has going for it, the magic that makes Nashville the “It” city, what will cause it to not move forward is the falling into the same backward-looking trap the previous administration bought into.

Pro-Tip to the new Mayor: Be different. Be distinct. Find your own voice, don’t replay the broken record of the past.

PS: Our team at the Nashville Business Journal’s forum yesterday at the Omni shamed the other side. We had hard facts. The other side’s lack of detail and overall arrogance showed the audience why a vote against this light rail plan is the right vote. We think the audience agreed with us.

[1] https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml — Davidson County has 37 percent of the population of the MSA and 46 percent of the payroll in retailing. The ratio of 37/46 indicates that about 80 percent of the retail activity in Davidson originals with local residents and twenty percent comes from the rest of the MSA.