"South Alabamians For Real Reform supports the Comcast Cable show Another Side: an educational program that presents another side of the tax issue. Hosted by long-time political personality Shane McBryde, the show airs on Tuesdays on Comcast Channel 6 at 6:30pm, and on Wednesdays on both Comcast Channel 6 and MediaCom Channel 45 at 6:30pm."

With only a few days remaining before the September 9 referendum, we thought you might like to listen to a few of the comments made by several past guests on "Another Side." The leadership of South Alabamians For Real Reform deserve special thanks for their outstanding work in producing this educational series. Visit their website at www.safrr.org.

Each one of the bulleted lines below is a link to a Real Audio file. Click and listen.

Freddie Patterson, Alabama Farmers Federation

• "...are we short $600 million...?"
• "...property tax structure was set up in 1978..."
• "significant change in the structure of ad valorem."

Riley Boykin Smith, former Commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

• "...it's way too much money..."
• "...there's not one penny guaranteed for education."
• "...it's going to be up to the legislature to approve these spending efforts."
• "...the landowner's not going to have any choice but to pass on . . . additional cost..."
• "This plan needs to be defeated."

John Giles, Christian Coalition of Alabama

• "...it's just time for a good old dosage of good stewardship."
• "...we don't have enough resources out here just to be creating departments."
• "...message will finally be sent to Montgomery to live within your means."
• "...there's going to be a misuse of those dollars."
• "There is a . . . conflict between the message between the governor and from the President of the United States."

Rosemary Elebash, National Federation of Independent Business

• "...when you take this kind of money out of the economy..."
• "...annual reappraisals . . . 401 million new dollars outside this tax package, ..."
• "This is a brand new tax."
• "...the appropriation process is strictly from the legislature."
• "What is really the shortfall?"

Dwight Steedley, Mobile County Landowners Association

• "Governor Riley has cut the equivalent of the price of a Coke."
• "...it would take a $1.4 billion tax cut for the taxes on the people of Alabama to be equivalent to the taxes on the people of [Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, & Colorado]"
• Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Colorado have no state tax on real property. Georgia has "... one mill on 10 percent assessment." (Alabama's current state property tax on farms, forestland, and homes is 6.5 mills on 10 percent assessment, six and one-half times larger than the State of Georgia's.)
• "...Florida, Tennessee, and Texas have no individual income taxes."
• the proposed Alabama state property tax increase is a "staggering 438% increase in the state millage rate."

Lee Laechelt, Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc.

• "...forests are good for our State..."
• "...taxes do come every year..."
• "...most of the land is owned by small individual families..."
• property taxes are due every year
• the State is saying "...now we would rather take your money instead of encouraging you to grow trees."
• forest owners will pay highest income tax rate
• "...would you suggest the tax is anti-environment?"
• "...will we be able to maintain the 60,000 jobs provided by the productive commercial forestland?"
• "People respond to good tax policy."