Alec MacGillis reports:
[Strip clubs] are caught in an endless legal battle with the state that points to the downside of the Texas approach to revenue collection. By singling-out easy targets, Perry hasn't cultivated a pro-business atmosphere, but rather a mixture of distrust, resentment, and non-compliance among those who are supposed to be ponying up. The $5-per-customer tax on strip clubs that Perry signed in 2007—which goes by a number of nicknames, the most clever of which is the “pole tax”—was to fund an array of programs relating to sexual assault prevention and counseling, as well as subsidies for a sliver of the six million Texans without insurance. In a state with no income tax, helping those without health coverage fell to, well, those looking for women who aren’t covered. “That’s where we’ve come to,” Garnet Coleman, a Democratic state representative from Houston, told me.
(Photo: Adult entertainers protest outside of San Francisco's city hall on August 18, 2006. Dozens of adult entertainment workers protested proposed regulations of adult entertainment establishments during an entertainment commission hearing at San Francisco City Hall. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The Dish 