When we were growing up, we learned Aesop’s fable “The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs.” But clearly the Bend City Council and the Deschutes County Commission have forgotten the moral of that story. The single largest employment area in Deschutes County and the city of Bend, after government, is recreation. We depend upon visitors coming here to enjoy our wonderful recreation.

City and county leaders expect us to believe we can tax lodging establishments and visitors will still come. Unfortunately, these visionaries want you to think the tax will only affect visitors. But they are short-sighted.

If you are a small business in food service, recreation or even local retail, you depend on visitors’ dollars.

If they stop coming, these businesses will stall even further. Even the city’s own fiscal analysis acknowledges, there will be “some reduction” in tourism.

Further, the analysis says some of the money raised by the tax will be used to entice more folks to come here — so we can tax them more. This is the flawed economic thinking. The absence of major taxes has always been the preferred model for flourishing business. Vote no on 9-94 and 9-96.

Let’s continue to attract as many visitors to Deschutes County as we can — not try to chase them away.