Elizabethtown, KY--April 19, 2007

To Mayor David Willmoth, Jr. and Elizabethtown City Councilmen Kenny Lewis, Ron Thomas, Tony Bishop, and Marty Fulkerson:

If the Elizabethtown City Council passes a restaurant tax at Monday's special session at 4:30 pm at City Hall, it will be a case of 4 people deciding to increase taxes on the other 22,500 people in the city.

That means .0001777 per cent of the city's population has decided what the other 99.99983 per cent must do. And it is 100% taxation without representation for anyone who lives outside the Elizabethtown city limits.

Though it may be legal--it's wrong.  It's wrong that four people can pass a tax that affects the other 99.9983 percent of the city's population.  And it is wrong for four people to pass a tax that will affect those from anywhere else in the world who eat in an Elizabethtown restaurant. 

If you live in Glendale, Sonora, Upton, White Mills, Vine Grove, Radcliff, West Point--or anywhere else in Hardin County--you will still have to pay the tax if you eat in an Elizabethtown restaurant because four men in Elizabethtown have said you must.

If you live in Meade County, Grayson County, Jefferson County, Barren County, or Hart County--or anywhere else in Kentucky--you will still have to pay the tax because four men in Elizabethtown have said you must.

If you live in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, West Virginia, Ohio--or anywhere else in the United States--you will still have to pay the tax because four men in Elizabethtown have said you must.

If you are visiting America from anywhere else in the world--and you dine in an Elizabethtown restaurant--you will have to pay the tax because four men have said you must.

I would like to ask you to please reconsider your vote at this time.  The other 99.99983 per cent of Elizabethtown, and indeed--all of Hardin County-- needs you to stand up for them by putting a stop to increasing the tax burden that already takes one out of every two dollars they earn.