If there's one thing politicians like better than levying taxes, it's levying them on people who won't be voting for them anyway.

Or against them.

That's why hotel and rental car taxes are so popular around the country. Theoretically, most of the people blindsided at the checkout counter by those taxes are merely visitors who have no recourse but to smack their foreheads in astonishment at how a $120 bill for a room ends up being $160.

Smack their heads and then pay up.

If you're anything like me, you sometimes find yourself paying more in taxes for a hotel room when you travel than you used to pay for a room. (Hey, the Rock 'em, Sock 'em Motel in Rockingham used to go for $32 a night, less if you caught Linda Kay working the front desk, her boss wasn't around and she needed some money.)

Likewise, surely I'm not the only one who's ever seen the cost of a weekly rental -- with all those taxes added -- exceed the price of his first car, am I?

Just like car rental and hotel room taxes, a decent chunk of the meals tax being proposed for Durham would, in theory, be paid by out-of-towners who eat at any of our fine restaurants. It's no sugar off our grits if a traveling businessman with an expense account has to pay an extra one percent tax when he entertains clients at Parizade, right?

That's the theory -- but not the reality. The fact is, with all of the fine eating establishments we have in Durham, many of us eat out regularly and would be affected by the meals tax.

Unless -- and this is where my sometimes-shaky-but-frequently-superior intellect comes to the fore -- we can find a way to levy the meals tax only on visitors.

The city could make sure Durhamites aren't affected by the tax on meals by giving each of us a -- tee hee -- password we can use when paying our bills.

Superior, right?

When the cashier says "How was your dining experience tonight?," before handing over your plastic you'd say "Uggum boogum." Or whatever that month's password is.

I would suggest an inaudible signal -- flashing a sign, perhaps -- that wouldn't be picked up by visitors, but with the reported gang problems we have here, the last thing we need is for somebody to have their "no-meals-tax" sign mistaken for a Blood or Crip.

Regardless of how one feels about taxes -- and most of us accept them reluctantly as a necessary evil -- it's OK to object to where the meals-tax revenue is slated to go.

A proposed minor league baseball museum? The Durham Civic Center?

Oy. There is no bigger fan of minor league baseball than I. I think the Durham Bulls are one of the best values for the money to be had. So do a lot of other people, too, as can be seen at the American Tobacco Warehouse and the DBAP when the Bulls are in town.

That doesn't mean tourists from around the state and country will descend upon the city to see, for instance, the bat with which Joe Wilhoit -- Who? That's my point -- hit in 69 consecutive games.

Supporting the arts and other cultural amenities is important, and there's no reason some of that meals tax can't go to the civic center and a museum. But say we forgot that month's password and had to fork over the meals tax: wouldn't it be nice to know that the money is being used to ensure raises for cops or firefighters? Or to fix these gaping potholes?

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