Friday, April 24, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.
Hartford Courant travel blogger Jeanne LeBlanc recently compared two hard-hit tourist states and how their chief executives handled room tax rates: “The Hawaii Legislature has passed a bill to raise hotel room taxes, but Gov. Linda Lingle is expected to veto it ... Not so much in Nevada, where Gov. Jim Gibbons is allowing an increase in the room tax to become law without his signature ... The issue is the same in Hawaii and Nevada. The economic slump is really slamming states that rely on tourism for tax revenue, and the temptation is to slam tourists back. But the wisdom of raising taxes on a dwindling tax base is questionable at best. Tourists have an option that residents don’t — they can stay away.” Oh, that could never happen, right?
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