June 17, 2005

"Not By Me"

Steve Gill has released audio of Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell's blanket rejection and condemnation of a proposed payroll tax for people who work . This may be the first time I've every agreed with Mayor Purcell on any substantive policy, but it doesn't pain me at all to say he's right on this.

Here's an audio clip from Gill's radio show, Steve Gill Mornings, on WTN 99.7 FM . Gill talks for about 90 seconds about the payroll tax proposal and his view of it, then asks Mayor Purcell about it. Purcell responded:

A wage, a payroll tax, is a kind of income tax. I don't think it's authorized under state law, to be honest with you. I don't think that it's something that we could put in - but whether or not we could I don't want to and I strongly recommend not just to this admininstration and this Metro Council but the councils that come that a payroll tax or a wage tax put on this city would absolutely drive this city in the way that you've described. You can see it all over thenortheast you can see it in the older cities in this country.

Purcell, who came to Nashville from the suburbs of Philadelphia like I did, witnessed first hand how Philadelphia destroyed its tax base with a payroll tax, causing the suburbs to flourish as businesses moved outside of the city to escape the payroll tax.

The mayor continued with a well-considered discussion of just exactly how a city payroll tax drives businesses outside of the city limits. Listen to the whole thing, online above, or by clicking here to download the audio file.