A sudden change of heart over hotel tax rates

As human beings, we have the opportunity to form an opinion on a subject, with the option of reassessing and even changing our belief based on new information.

This, however, is simply amazing.

Three months ago, as the concept for a new downtown stadium in Omaha was gaining ground, Mayor Mike Fahey said that part of the funding for Rosenblatt Stadium's replacement would come from a 1 percent increase in hotel taxes.

Judging from the response at that time by the Metropolitan Hospitality Association, you would have thought the end of the world would arrive if this tax increase went through. Omaha already has one of the highest hotel tax rates in the country, they said. It would drive convention business away from the city, they worried. It would make other cities more attractive to people looking to grow their business in bigger markets, they claimed.

Three months later, the Omaha World-Herald reported that the MHA had decided that the hotel tax wasn't such a bad idea after all. In fact, it was such a GOOD idea that they asked the mayor to increase it by an ADDITIONAL half-point, with the revenue from that extra increase going to the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau to fund promotion of Omaha as a destination point.

Good heavens -- somebody could sprain something doing a 180-degree turn that quickly. Are you kidding? The MHA has gone from being AGAINST a 1 percent increase in the hotel tax to being IN FAVOR of an increase that is actually HIGHER than the original suggestion?

Of course, the hotel tax is a good idea in that it would help eliminate the need to raise property taxes in a city that is already taxed out. People who were initially against the new stadium worried about the effect it would have on property taxes, but the stadium funding will come from hotel and car rental taxes, keno revenue and stadium revenue.

We just find it strange that an organization that was so adamantly opposed to a hotel tax increase, suddenly, is now not only in favor of it, but wants to see it raised higher than originally announced. We wonder what would cause such an immediate 180-degree turn in the thinking of the MHA.