An Open Letter To Michael Nutter

Dear Your Honor, Mr. Mayor Michael Nutter,

I write a blog.

I live in Montgomery County.

People in Philadelphia read my blog.

Am I subject to the "blogger tax" also? If so, would you be so kind as to come collect it yourself? I could use the laugh while I explain the first amendment to you. I could also explain to you that you can't tax thoughts, just because someone writes them down. Otherwise, you could tax my 10 year old daughter's diary, couldn't you? Or, tax Stu Bykofsky's column, because that's not news, that's an opinion column, just like blogs.

See, Mr. Mayor Nutter, the possibilities are endless. If you really need the money, maybe you should change the Philadelphia 911 service to a 1-900 number. There's money in that and it would cut down on false alarms and nuisance calls to your emergency services. Or, change the number for the city hall switchboard to a toll call. Then all the kooks who call on a regular basis will be charged for bothering your receptionists while they are chatting and texting and filing their nails. Can you imagine the $$$ you would generate while your staff kept some poor slob on hold for 40 minutes?

Oh, and another thing you can do...copywrite the word "Philly Cheesesteak". Then, you could collect a fee from every crappy stand across the country who thinks they can make our hometown sandwich actually taste like the real deal.

Or, you could just leave everybody alone and realize that you can't tax free speech. It's guaranteed in our constitution, so important, our founders thought, that they made it the First Amendment. If you want to charge a blogger (who may not have the means to pay) to speak his mind, then you violate his constitutional right to free speech.

By the way, drop the $300.00 business fee to bloggers who earn a measly pittance for running ads on their blogs...you're going to lose that one, too and you've already embarrassed yourself enough by the mere mention of it.

That is all.

Sincerely,

Bill Shaw