JAMES L. WHITE: Womack’s MFA is the right thing to do

“Bobby told Lucy, ‘The world ain’t round,

“Drops off sharp at the edge of town.

“Lucy, you know the world must be flat

“Because when people leave town, they never come back.’”

Those are lyrics from a 1991 Hal Ketchum song called “Small Town Saturday night,” which was written by Pat Alger and Hank DeVito. It hit No. 2 on the country charts for Ketchum and was one of his biggest hits to date — you never know what could happen in the future, eh?

Those of us who grew up in small towns have all had that sinking feeling that the end of the whole town might not be that far out of sight. After talking with U.S. Cong. Steve Womack this week, I started thinking about it all over again.

No, I’m not saying that Womack is trying to kill small towns. In fact, he’s sponsored the Marketplace Fairness Act that would in part help save small town merchants.

Currently, you can order something online and if the vendor doesn’t have a store in the state, the vendor isn’t required to collect and submit sales tax. It’s up to the consumer to report the sale and submit sales tax to the state, but that rarely, if EVER, happens. The MFA would instead shift the impetus for collecting and in turn submit state and local sales taxes.

Anti-taxers out there claim it will be in essence raising taxes, but that’s just more of the same old tired rhetoric that actually punishes local retailers and in the same breath the community itself.

Womack, a former mayor himself, explained that a customer can go to a local store to price an item. They find the item and will agree to the purchase, but when they see that additional price that sales tax adds they will often grab their smartphone and make the same purchase from an Internet dealer without paying sales tax and have the item delivered to their homes.

Although it does save the consumer a few dollars, it hurts the local retailer and the community because cities and counties can’t offer the kinds of services to which people have become accustomed without sales taxes.

And, ironically, some of those people may need a city or county service, such as 911. When they make the call for help, they will be the first ones to complain that the service is slow or unavailable, but it’s sales tax dollars that generate revenue to keep that service available.

Personally, I’ve seen a person who campaigned against a one-percent sales tax proposal in Harrison go to the police to file a complaint when they had something go wrong. I was amazed at that because the sales tax proposal would have made money to keep emergency services available. And I wondered why that “victim” didn’t instead turn to his contemporaries for help or take care of it himself.

No one likes taxes. Period. No argument.

But taxes are a necessary evil if we want to see local governments still be able to keep police on the street and firefighters available to save as much property and life as possible. That, of course, doesn’t include the water and sewer services necessary for people’s lives.

As Womack maintains, if local retailers in small towns aren’t put on the same competitive ground as Internet merchants, we may one day look around and wonder why there are tumbleweeds blowing down streets where local stores used to be.

James L. White is associate editor of the Harrison Daily Times. Contact him at jamesw@harrisondaily.com or (870) 743-0608.