Headline of the day - Pay as you go: FL lawmaker seeks to tax toilet paper
Friday, March 11, 2005
FL State Sen. Al Lawson wants to tax two cents a roll. There will be a market for truly economy size rolls now.
Bloggrrl Ms. Julien's down in Key West. I hope you get to comment on this one. What is going on in your state? (Sun-Sentinel):
Florida's Legislature is flush with good ideas. Sen. Al Lawson's involves a 2 cent-per-roll tax on toilet paper to pay for wastewater treatment and help small towns upgrade their sewer systems.
The Democratic lawmaker's pay-as-you-go bill has been the source of many jokes -- bathroom humor you might say -- but he says the issue is a serious one, especially in some of the fast-growing Panhandle coastal counties in his district. ``They're experiencing a tremendous boom in growth and they're not able to accommodate the growth,'' Lawson said.
``We've got 17 million people in this state and all of them can contribute to protecting our underground water supply.''
In a Republican-dominated Legislature that doesn't like new taxes, the idea is likely to pretty quickly end up in the tank. Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, said he didn't think it would get too far, but didn't rule it out.
``We'll be getting to the bottom of it real soon,'' Lee said.
