The reasons this cornerstone belief of conservative fiscal policy may not be entirely true is twofold. First, as I've already mentioned, it's hard for taxpayers to protest a tax when it's imposed on them by government officials they don't elect.

But the second reason may be the key -- awareness, or lack of it. Mosey on down to your city hall or state capitol, and try to collar a lobbyist who represents tourists and business travelers. You're unlikely to find one. There's spot evidence here and there that this may slowly be changing. The first activist front is likely to be car rental taxes, but bed taxes may not be far behind.

And yet no amount of lobbyist arm-twisting is likely to scare politicians who are far more afraid of the twin-headed monster of dwindling government revenues and tea-partying voters than they are of resentful tourists in the car next to them.

The strike-back against confiscatory cities like New York is likely going to have to come the old-fashioned way -- by John and Jane Q. citizens refusing to open their wallets by staying home in the first place. Most travelers may not look at their hotel bill with the microscope (and the thesaurus) needed to see just how much tax they are paying. What they will notice more and more as the economy slowly slogs on, however, is the rising total bill they're footing to put them in the same city as the Statue of Liberty and Carnegie Hall.

Let's face it: People vote with their wallets, too. What an irony if the travelers' revenge came in the form of a lack of additional money for a major city to pay for that spanking new baseball stadium or that sprawling new convention center. Cities in effect are trying to build new tourist attractions by sticking it to tourists. Justice might be if the tourists stuck it to cities by taking next year's vacation at home, or if businessmen and women held that meeting by teleconference instead of in person.

The numbers are few on whether that's happening yet in significant numbers. But the U.S. recession shows few signs of relenting anytime soon. And the longer Americans have to go without, the more skilled they're likely to get at cutting corners. Common sense -- and economic law -- says that sooner or later, more and more of them are going to pinch pennies by sleeping in their own beds at night. Sooner or later, the silver bullet of bed and other tourist taxes may boomerang and hit tax-and-spend politicians right between the eyes.