[Vision2020] Fw: [Uv-Eye-Opener] Saying "Oui!" to corporate tax breaks

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Sue Hovey wrote:
> I suspect many of you already receive Jim's Eye-Opener, but just in 
> case. It always makes for interesting reading.
> Sue H.
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Jim Hansen <mailto:jhansen at uvidaho.org>
> *To:* UV Eye Opener <mailto:action-for-idaho at lists.onenw.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 01, 2008 10:29 AM
> *Subject:* [Uv-Eye-Opener] Saying "Oui!" to corporate tax breaks
>
> [] *UV-Eye-Opener
> */Volume 11, Number 6 - February 18-29, 2008
> United Vision for Idaho & United Action for Idaho
> //An update of Idaho’s legislature from a progressive perspective. 
> Pass it on...
>
> /
> *Infatuation with tax giveaways strikes again. *On Thursday, if you 
> walked by the House Revenue & Taxation Committee you would have seen a 
> pack of legislators fawning over their latest corporate friend: a 
> French corporation called Areva, Inc. A majority of lawmakers on the 
> committee said a giddy “Oui! Oui!” to two bills that give away a big 
> chunk of Idaho’s tax base to entice the company to build a facility in 
> Idaho. The site consultants for the company – who no doubt receive 
> generous compensation in return for all the tax breaks they get for 
> their client – would not guarantee that Areva will actually set up 
> shop in Idaho. After the vote, they probably flew to Paris to compare 
> similar goodies offered by other states to see which one was the 
> biggest sucker. Study after study show that quality education, and 
> educated work force and transportation and communication 
> infrastructure are what companies look for when they want to locate a 
> new facility. Not more tax breaks. Check out an analysis by Good Jobs 
> First 
> <http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate_subsidy/locations_consultants.cfm> 
> on “How Site Location Consultants Manipulate Corporate Investment 
> Decisions.”
>
> *How do you say “shift” in French?* Since Idaho must balance the 
> budget, these tax break bills simply shift the tax burden to other 
> taxpayers who don’t have slick consultants lobbying for them. The fact 
> that the legislature has already revised its revenue projections down 
> for this year is evidence that past tax give-aways do have 
> consequences. House Bill 561 
> <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/H0561.html> would extend the sales tax 
> production exemption to Areva’s line of work. The production exemption 
> is based on the theory that some companies should not have to pay 
> sales tax on things they acquire to produce a product since that 
> product will be subject to sales tax when it is sold. It did not seem 
> to bother the majority on the committee that this French company’s 
> “product” (enriched uranium) is not likely to be sold, let alone 
> taxed, in Idaho. House Bill <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/H0562.html> 
> 562 <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/H0562.html> goes even further, 
> giving Areva a cap on its property taxes if it reaches the investment 
> level its consultants promise. In fact, the property tax give-away is 
> twice as generous as the cap legislators gave to Micron a few years back.
>
> *The sales tax on food “part deux.”* Perhaps feeling guilty at giving 
> away such generous gifts to a foreign company, the tax committee 
> printed a bill on Friday that would help offset some of the impact of 
> the sales tax on food. There was a big difference how the committee 
> approached each issue, however. With Areva’s bills, Chairman Dennis 
> Lake scheduled several proposals so they could be evaluated together. 
> With the tax on food, the chairman is scheduling them one at a time, 
> refusing to let alternatives such as removing the food tax entirely 
> from coming before the committee. The new bill, House Bill 588 
> <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/H0588.html>, acknowledges that low 
> income families spend more of their household income on food than 
> wealthier families, but it offers only a small increase in the credit 
> (far less than the actual impact of the sales tax on food). It 
> provides a refund for Idaho’s poorest taxpayers to apply to receive 
> $50 if they don’t make enough to pay income taxes but, sadly, it also 
> prohibits low income families that are forced to rely on food stamps 
> from getting the credit. To keep too many people from hearing about 
> the bill, the committee scheduled the public hearing for first thing 
> Monday morning.
>
> *“Au revoir” to the promise of paying teachers for going the extra 
> mile.* After many long days of testimony on competing approaches on 
> how to evaluate and compensate classroom teachers for improving their 
> skills and taking on additional responsibilities, senators were 
> presented with a so-called “compromise” bill this week. It squeaked 
> out of committee and was killed by the full Senate on Friday. The 
> bill’s biggest weakness was that it did not involve teachers in coming 
> up with a workable system and continued to rely on standardized test 
> scores to determine a teacher’s ability. Senate Bill 1436 
> <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/S1436.html> stripped some of the most 
> offensive provisions of Superintendent Tom Luna’s original bill 
> (namely the punishment of linking a temporary salary boost to 
> abandoning their contract rights). Even though the sponsor of SB 1436 
> Sen. John Goedde presented it as a “compromise,” his use of the term 
> was disingenuous. Enough of Goedde’s colleagues saw through it and 
> sent him back to the drawing board.
>
> *Turning their backs on humanity*. Last week, the Senate State Affairs 
> Committee put Idaho in a diminishing group of public entities that 
> have turned their backs on murder and terrorism in the Darfur region 
> of Sudan. John Sullivan deserves huge thanks and respect for his work 
> to bring thousands of people in Idaho together to support this bill. 
> Rep. Nicole LeFavour, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, wrote a 
> reflection on the cynicism of the Committee’s vote in her 
> <http://notesfromthefloor.typepad.com/notes_from_the_floor/2008/02/triumph-of-cyni.html>blog 
> of February 21 
> <http://notesfromthefloor.typepad.com/notes_from_the_floor/2008/02/triumph-of-cyni.html>. 
> The staff of the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho (PERSI) 
> spent public money to lobby against the bill, even though the state 
> was protected by a federal law that encouraged states to divest from 
> companies funding genocide in Sudan. PERSI made sure the Republicans 
> on the committee fell in line by having one of its board members who 
> has also been the Idaho Republican Party Chairman sit in front to keep 
> an eye on the Senators as they cast their votes. Senators Joe Stegner, 
> Bart Davis, Clint Stennett and Kate Kelly voted yes. (2Rs & 2Ds). 
> Senators Brad Little, Bob Geddes, Mike Jorgenson & Denton Darrington 
> voted no (4Rs). It was up to Chairman Curt McKenzie of Nampa – one of 
> the early supporters of the bill – to break the tie. Students from 
> Northwest Nazarene University in his home town had testified about a 
> resolution they passed in support of Se 
> <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/S1367.html>nate Bill 1367 
> <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/S1367.html>. McKenzie, however, buckled 
> under the political pressure and voted no.
>
> *Watch out who’s in the passing lane?* This time of year, bills get 
> introduced and start weaving through the process like a NASCAR driver 
> in rush hour traffic. It is not pretty. On Wednesday, the governor’s 
> office went to the Senate to present his bills to increase vehicle 
> registration fees to pay for roads and to help cover some of the cost 
> of the state police. But, the next day, the House Ways & Means 
> Committee (a special leadership committee that only meets when the 
> Speaker of the House wants it to) quickly gathered to introduce three 
> new bills. It convened again on Friday to introduce two more. Among 
> these are two variations on the governor’s fee increase; a bill that 
> will place limits on how money is spend on road projects with the 
> GARVEE bonds (remember the debt-financed projects that former Governor 
> Kempthorne pushed through in 2006); and a bill that scrutinizes how 
> the Transportation Department does business with consultants and 
> contractors. The way the bills suddenly popped up seems to have 
> triggered a little road rage on the part of some legislators and the 
> governor’s office. Of course, being ignored in all this traffic is any 
> plan to empower local communities to actually address congestion with 
> a variety of transit options.
>
> *What does open government smell like? *Some people think thousands of 
> cows or pigs confined in a single operation will smell like (how do I 
> say this delicately) like manure. I suppose some people may think they 
> will smell like “fine Corinthian leather.” If you live over a mile 
> away from the operation, it does not matter what you think you’ll 
> smell. Idaho law prohibits you from testifying at public hearings on 
> siting the operation. All the new wind turbines cropping up in Idaho 
> attest to the fact that this is one windy state. The one-mile 
> limitation is absurd and the Senate repealed it last year. But 
> something stinky happened in the House. Rep. Lenore Barrett, chair of 
> the Local Government Committee, was permitted to kill the bill by 
> never scheduling a hearing. This week, the same bill – Senate Bill 
> 1402 <http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/S1402.html> – passed by a 30-4 
> margin. (Senators Steve Bair, Monty Pearce, Mel Richardson and Jeff 
> Siddoway were the four who must have lost their sense of smell). So, 
> the question remains: will Barrett and the Speaker of the House keep 
> the SB 1402 bottled up or will they expose it to the fresh air of open 
> government? Stay tuned. Or, should I say, keep your nose to the wind.
>
> UV-Eye-Opener is a joint publication of United Vision for Idaho & 
> United Action for Idaho
> More information on issues pending on the state and federal level
> can be found at our websites www.uvidaho.org
> <http://www.uvidaho.org/>and www.unitedactionforidaho.org
> <http://www.unitedactionforidaho.org/>Call us at (208) 331-7028
>
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