There is an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that just seems like a no-win situation for the arts in Cuyahoga County Ohio. They are proposing using a tax from cigarettes to fund the arts.

Doesn’t seem like a position you would want to be in. If people stop smoking, there goes your funding. At the same time do you want to be encouraging people to smoke so you can keep your funding?

When try to raise money by having fun runs and selling candy bars, you can be pretty confident about telling people that it is for a good cause. You really don’t want to be telling people to smoke because it is for a good cause. Even worse, you don’t want your chain smoking Aunt Evelyn smirking at your disapproving look when she lights up and saying that you should be happy, because she is single handedly underwriting your season.

Probably the only thing worse would be if Nevada started to fund the arts with taxes paid by legal sex workers. Can you imagine an arts manager coming home to find his/her spouse has been involved on one side or the other of that?

“Well you were working so hard and so many hours at the theatre. I figured if you got a little more funding, you would be able to hire some help and be home more often. I was only doing it out of love for you honey.”

Okay, maybe that is a little extreme. Though an amusing image if you picture it in a cartoon rather than actually affecting real life people.

The good news from the Plain Dealer article though is that using tourism taxes like restaurant and hotel tax proceeds is already being considered.