Times guilty of 'sour grapes'

Lawrence Bay had this published in the April 16 Quad-City Times as a rebuttal of their April 9 editorial. "The Quad-City Times continues its year-long deceitful campaign to ruin the Rock Island County economy by raising the sales tax. Now the Times prints a sour grapes editorial essentially calling the 8,531 voters who voted "NO" ill-informed. ...... The Times refuses to acknowledge the many valid objections to raising the sales tax in Rock Island County. The Times also bemoans the 76,114 registered voters who stayed home while refusing to acknowledge that a historically low-turnout election was chosen for this referendum by the school boards in the hopes that their chances would be better. ..... Rock Island County schools already receive far more money per student than Scott County schools with inferior results. Adding more water to a very leaky bucket will not improve the quality of our schools. ..... Moline stores are at a slight competitive disadvantage now with a 7.5 percent sales tax compared to 7 percent in Iowa. Raising the sales tax to 8.5 percent would cause many Illinoisans to shop in Iowa. ..... The Times refuses to acknowledge that this would cost the state of Illinois and the city of Moline lost sales tax revenue and lead to the closing of many stores and restaurants with the resultant loss of jobs and property taxes. ..... The Quad-City Times editorialized against raising gasoline taxes in Iowa while urging higher sales taxes in Illinois. Some might conclude that the Quad-City Times is actively attempting to destroy the retail base of Rock Island County in an effort to have more Illinois dollars go to Iowa retailers and governments."