Sure there's a connection. People that eat out a lot at nice restaurants are either single, widowers, or people with a lot of diposable income that send thier children to private schools. You know, the type that typically vote down school budgets. By making them pay more which will ENTIRELY go towards school children ;), then the individual school district tax requests will be lowered and these greedy folks with too much disposable cash will be less likely to vote down the reasonable local tax increases. /sarcasm