Melvin: Taxes for backsides and baseball

by David Safier
I've mentioned before that Al Melvin didn't sign the recent No Tax Pledge, even though he supported it earlier, because he liked the idea of new taxes to improve local roads. He was absolutely against taxes . . . until his backside met too many potholes. "I feel my pain," he muttered and supported the tax.

Most conservatives, I've found, are "limited self interest liberals." They support government spending to help themselves, their families, people who give money to their campaigns and rich people in general, but they stand proud and strong against government giveaways to anyone unfortunate enough to have problems they can't relate to.

Now it turns out Melvin is for the tax measure to build baseball stadiums to keep spring training alive. His explanation?

I'm not going to try and deconstruct Melvin's reasoning. As the saying goes, there's no "there" there. The bottom line is, Melvin can relate to bucks for baseball, but for schools or for health care or other social services? Eh, not so much.

Senator Gould called Melvin and others from this area who support the baseball tax "so-called Republicans." Which makes perfect sense. Gould can't relate to a baseball stadium in Tucson. How does it help him?