What Happened to the Quality of Life Quotient?

There used to be a time when a company chose where to locate based on quality of life.  Was there a good school system where their employees could send their children and provide the company with a steady supply of educated workers?  Were there parks for the children to play in and the workers to spend their weekends?  Was the crime rate low and was the police force competent?  Was the public library well stocked and was the city council evenhanded in their dealings?

These were the questions companies once asked before deciding where to locate, questions they ask no more.  Now they ask how much will the town provide in tax breaks?  Will the county give them a reduced amount their property taxes?  Would the state be willing to build them a new road?  Maybe the state would pay them $8000 per new hire?

There are now bidding wars between cities and states over who will be the new location for a business.  Those bidding wars end up costing our public schools and our social safety net as the bids are in tax dollars the company will save or be given.  Wal-Mart and car manufactures hold the various governments hostage all in the hopes of padding the bottom line with corporate welfare while dangling the prospect of numerous jobs.

We need to back to focusing on quality of life, not how low the corporate tax rate is.  We need to get back to asking about the quality of schools, the number of parks and the level of crime in deciding where we will locate a business.  Only after we have refocused on quality of life will we make our cities and states more welcoming to business.

Stop Saying We Are Broke

Now that the Arizona Legislature has passed $538 million a year in new corporate welfare, can we stop saying that Arizona is broke?  The argument for the last few years has been that we need to cut state spending because we don't have the money to balance our budget.  In fact, that was the argument used when Governor Brewer sought a waiver to cut $540 a million a year from the state's Medicaid program, ACCCHS.

Saying we are broke is a lie.  Our state has revenue shortfalls primarily due to our over reliance on sales taxes and our constant cutting of other taxes such as property and income.  Of course, those that lie about the state being broke while shoveling out corporate welfare are the same ones who lie about tax cuts paying for themselves.  The myth that tax cuts somehow generate more revenue for the state is perpetuated by those who have sworn allegiance to Grover Norquist and his "starve the beast" scheme.

In fact, the adherents of Grover Norquist have also sworn to not raise taxes.  In Arizona that's an easy promise to make as it takes a 3/4ths majority of both house of the legislature to raise taxes and only a simple majority to cut taxes.  They keep braying that people don't want higher taxes, which is another lie, since the voters of Arizona approved a temporary 1 cent increase in the sales tax for three years to help prevent cuts in education and other programs.

No, Arizona isn't broke, its just run by a bunch of mental midgets who have sworn their allegiance to Grover Norquist and his Milton Friedman ideals.

Let Them Eat Cake - The Second Helping

You can read the original Let Them Eat Cake here.

Courtesy of Fratelli Studios

It didn’t take long for Governor Brewer and the Republican controlled legislature to strike a deal to give more subsidies to corporations on the backs of Arizona’s poor and working poor.  If you remember, Governor Brewer has proposed dropping almost 300 thousand men, women and children from the Arizona’s Medicaid (ACCCHS) rolls in order to cut $540 million from the budget.  Not surprisingly, the new corporate welfare bill will cost an estimated $538 million a year.

WHAT THE FUCK?!  Arizona can afford to give out $538 million a year in tax breaks, tax cuts and other corporate “incentives” yet it can’t afford $540 million a year to make sure that 300 thousand men, women and children don’t go without non-emergency room medical care?  Are we as a state that callous that we would throw that many people to the wolves in order to give more corporate welfare in the name of “job creation”?

Arizona already has some of the lowest corporate income and property taxes in the nation.  We are one of the most business friendly states and one of the most worker unfriendly be an “at will” and “right to work” state.  Maybe we are spending on all of this money on corporations because we can’t entice them here any other way.  I mean, why would a corporation want to invest in creating jobs in a state that doesn’t value public education, public transportation or a social safety net?

Then again, there will be corporations that will jump at the opportunity to partake in corporate welfare at the expense of 300 thousand men, women and children.  Those corporations will wallow in the state’s largesse and provide very little in return.  Those corporations will gladly say, “Let them eat cake”.