THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505240007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Your editorial ``One too many amphitheaters'' (May 15) is a great example of how far to the left they newspaper has drifted. Stating that the payment of sales taxes could ``level the playing field'' demonstrates how little you understand the difference between socialism and free enterprise. I'll bet you would see things more clearly if the Navy's Moral, Welfare and Recreation Fund published a first-class daily newspaper of general circulation to all the residents of southside Hampton Roads with your tax and advertisers' dollars.
MWR and the Navy have every right and duty to provide as much entertainment, food, beverages, etc., to our sailors and other authorized personnel as they possibly can; however, it is against their own rules to enter into competition with taxpayers for the retail sales of food, beverage, entertainment, etc., to the general public.
Not paying sales taxes is just the first of many unfair advantages the government has over its smaller private-sector competitors - real estate taxes, personal property taxes, gross receipts taxes (business licenses), property and casualty insurance, liability insurance, FICA taxes, Medicare taxes, hospitalization insurance, Social Security taxes, federal, state and local alcohol taxes, ABC regulations of the Commonwealth of Virginia, cost of land or lease and the list goes on and on.
It is also amazing that you failed to se that it is not only, or even mainly, the new city of Virginia Beach's amphitheater, but, rather the thousands of small restaurants, night clubs, movie theaters, sports facilities, etc., whose sales are stolen by the very government to whom they and their employees pay so much of their hard-earned money. The government should never enter into competition with its taxpaying citizens. To do so is unfair and foolhardy, in that it injures those on whose health it depends for its life's blood, i.e., tax dollars.
WILLIAM R. MILLER III
President, Miller Enterprises
Norfolk, May 17, 1995 by CNB