Cedar Fair investing $50 million at Carowinds over three years

IMO - the "no more taxes" pledges of the last generation have led to increasing stresses on State and Local governments - the Feds just don't have the same ability to send revenues downstream to states and municipalities, so those local jurisdictions have come up with their own revenue sources...many of which don't really make the most practical sense at that level.

To be fair, Jeff, if your employer's work place caught fire during your work day,you would have benefited. Same if your car had been broken into and the cops had recovered your stuff.

And you experienced fewer traffic delays b/c of the publicaly subsidised bus system. And city paid for stop lights.

+10 to Gator.

But I use all those resources anywhere I go - and I don't pay taxes to everyone.

At the very least to keep it more on topic, when I commute I don't use just these resources in my home community and my work community. I use them in every community I pass through along the way...and I'm not paying taxes to all of them.

I tend to agree with Jeff. You support your home community. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

If everyone does this, it all works out fine...and if commuting workers are such a burden to a community, then it's poor planning on that community's part.

On top of that (and more to Jeff's original post, I believe) - if I'm paying money to a government and have no say in how it is used, that's a broken taxation system.

I'd never heard of paying taxes based on where you work until I moved to Ohio. Like most of the ways Ohio funds things, it's goofy.

Last time I looked, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Indiana had cities/counties with some form of local income tax that applied to non-residents. Some of them had reduced rates for non-residents.

Its an example of exporting a tax burden. Using non-residents as revenue sources. And though the type of exporting we are talking about here may not be common (outside the midwest anyways), its common in other forms (and has been for a number of decades). Tourism is popular for exporting for popular tourists locations.

It may be becomig more open and purposeful though. All part of a culture of wanting a lot of government services but wanting other people to pay for it.

As for a say, how much influence do you have over the rates of taxation or use of government revenues at any level of government? As impractical as it may be, voting with your feet is much more likely to be effective than is voting with a ballot.

Ohio's system is extremely goofy. Communities shouldn't charge income tax period in my opinion. Charge the commodity that you have (ie land, ie property tax.)

I'm pretty sure school funding in Ohio is still unconstitutional... after 15+ years. You can see how that's going. But again, this is the state that wrote casino addresses into its constitution, while not bothering to competitively bid out the licenses or require that they be renewed annually. And they hate the gays. If it weren't for Cedar Point, Kings Island and High Street, Ohio could pretty much fall into Lake Erie and I wouldn't care.

Yeah, there's school districts here in Ohio that got funding from state to construct new buildings and are now closing some of them due to loss of students. Now we have these multi-million dollar facilities sitting empty, and the remaining new buildings are too expensive to operate.

Charlotte Observer confirmed there is a coaster as part of the $50mill 3 year expansion. I also hope they do some of what they're doing at Kings Dominion and add some atmosphere, light packages, and work on original theming.

Wingnut....er, Wingrider. ;~)

I'm curious to know how much of that money will go to a phony web page that seems like a leak but is intended for nothing more than getting enthusiasts all excited and making Gonch mad.

$3.50.

kpjb said:

$3.50.

You overpaid.

He paid extra for Annoy Gonch fast pass.

That's the *same* monster that tried to charge ME three-fiddy just last week!

Damn that loch ness monster.

Don't you mean, Tree Fiddy?

Rumor has it there's a $30 million dollar coaster coming as part of this deal. It seems like it would be hard for them to spend that much on something they don't already have. Unless it's a giant wing coaster.

Not really a rumor, the Charlotte Business Journal gave a breakdown of most of the money, with 30mill going to a coaster (another source in the article sait it was closer to 33mill), 4 mill on the front gate, and 7mill on food choices.

Oh well if they know the precise cost this thing's probably mostly blueprinted out on some desk at a design firm already. The other rumor which might not be an actual rumor I guess is that the improvements will be installed on the North Carolina side of the park because it's that state giving them all the tax breaks.

There was also a cost breakdown of which state would get what. Mecklenburg county just approved tax incentives. I believe the SC side is already giving them incentives.