Tonight, for the fourth time in the last two weeks or three weeks, I listened to proponents of the half-cent, medical-research sales tax make their sales pitch at a public meeting.
And for the fourth time, I watched the opponents present their case.
(Tonight’s meeting was of the South Kansas city Alliance in a fire station/meeting hall complex at 97th and Marion Park Drive.)
After watching and participating in those four meetings, I can tell you that a clear trend has developed.
Here’s how it goes:
The proponents — the speakers vary from one place to another — do a workmanlike job of laying out their cards.
The problem is they have a weak hand and that their selling points — “Jackson County could be a destination for health care”…”We could make ground-breaking advances”…”This is an investment that will generate a return” — are general and unconvincing.
On the other hand, we, the opponents, always make a much stronger case, with arguments such as: “Forty million dollars a year could put to much better use than on a local medical-research program;” “Sales taxes are already too high, and they hit poor people the hardest;” and “The proposed tax looks like a money grab.”
But I have noticed another element that is Just as important as having a superior case: Most of us opponents speak with passion. And that’s because, where the civic elite are propping up and dispatching their minions around the county, the opponents are fighting tooth and nail for what is in the best interests of their neighborhoods and their county.
As I said at last week’s Citizens Association meeting, we are in a street fight with very wealthy people. And we dearly want to kick their asses, partly because the civic elite were so cavalier about bringing this extravagant and foolish proposal forward and getting the County Legislature to slip it onto the Nov. 5 ballot.
The civic leaders’ ambush — launched just three weeks before the Aug. 27 deadline for putting a measure on the ballot — was very calculated.
Their strategy from the outset has been very simple:
Rush the proposal onto the ballot without anything approaching a full, public airing; run a heavily financed, six-week campaign; and try to fool enough people — through TV ads and splashy brochures — to skim to victory in a special, one-issue election with a light voter turnout.
The problem is that this arrogant, condescending strategy has started to make a lot of people really angry, and I think the turnout could end up being significantly larger than the 10 percent (of registered voters) that some election officials are predicting.
Tonight in Southtown, for example, a man named Lou Austin spoke in a raised voice as he recounted his own medical problems but asserted that a local sales tax should not go toward a bloated medical-research program. The city and his own south Kansas City area had many other, higher needs, he said.
He also drew nods and utterances of agreement when he spoke angrily about the proponents’ ability to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars with a few snaps of the fingers.
(I’m not sure one person among 50 or six on hand tonight was in favor of the tax proposal — besides, of course, the proponents’ presenters.)
Yes, this is a David and Goliath situation.
But our slingshot-launched pellets are opening big holes in Goliath’s flimsy armor, and they’re starting to take their toll.
…Wouldn’t it be great to see arrogance and entitlement brought crashing to the ground?
**
For much more about the proposed half-cent sales tax for “translational medical research,” go to stopabadcure.org
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Jim,
The proponents’ ads depicting the little girl with vision problems…hamper our efforts to stop this huge, 20-year tax.
The main proponents’ arrogance and wealth go together like peanut butter and jelly.
The Bad Cure supporters can be stoic and still push this through with a likely ad buy of families seeing loved ones come out of surgery to their happy families.
They will paint this as needed “save-the-day” research. When it is actually experimental.
Medical research is a need, but the private sector is subsidized to a large extent by R&D. Other entities, like the NIH and pharmaceutical companies, should be paying for this research.
The wealthy people who are supporting this tax are relying on a small turnout. We have a steep hill to climb. We cannot allow the less-than-passionate, greedy elements to win this vote; it’s too much money, too much taxation.
Great comment, Larry (especially since your favorite editor took a sharp, red pencil to it).
You are very right…Even though we have the passion, we have a steep hill to climb. If this thing passes, the proponents will point to that heart-tugging ad as the difference maker.