Right now they want to raise taxes again ... whereas if they recruited employers (real jobs that bring money into the community i.e industry) they'd have more taxes without raising them.
Then there's the raise taxes for an "incentive fund" to recruit industry plan that our local governments are mulling over. They're kicking around a .5 % sales tax increase so the local economic development group can get a war chest to entice companies to locate here, lots of cries of kickbacks and bribe money going around. Retail sales taxes are already around 8-9% here depending on which county or town you're in. Plus the fights over whether to combine the money or maintain separate funds. We've had some economic growth locally after years of job losses and relocated companies (NAFTA helped kill off the textile jobs around here). The contributions of this group to that new growth we've had are questionable. One company had been looking at the area since before that group existed, and that one and the others were lured by tax breaks from the state as much as anything.
Then there's the whole "let's become a tourist destination, tourism is a major industry too" mess we've got going. Our two new swanky golf courses have turned out to be a bigger success than many of us thought (me included), but they got them and the upscale hotel in an underhanded way, and we got a gas tax increase out of that to pay for it all. The failed tourist attraction we had been saddled with from way back is doing better than before, it had to actually, but who knows longer term.
The problem is the later parts of this plan, which we were told were essential to making the whole thing work, are now held up or off the rails due to lack of clear direction, red tape, and a bull headed belief that TVA would just give them the land they needed for our new big tourist draw. Then TVA changed their land use rules, making it even less likely they'd give over the land. Add to that the fact the powers that be forgot to file the proper paperwork asking to use the land, so their hopes to "be grandfathered in" pretty much hang on their claims everyone "knew" they wanted to use the land.