Two major energy bills are headed towards floor votes in the House probably Friday, Aug 3.  I haven't yet sorted out what amendments were made yesterday.  This is one of those Congressional doozies, a 700-plus page bill of high complexity that will have a lasting impact on the future of the nation.  Lawmakers will thus only have about 48 hours to familiarize themselves with its provisions.

Bill details and links to track both the bills and coverage of the provisions after the jump. 

Those of you who live in Polk, Dallas or Warren counties will get a chance to vote on the “Destiny” tax proposal on July 10.

David Elbert describes the basics in this piece in the Sunday Register. The concept is, the sales tax would go up from 6 percent to 7 percent in the three counties. One-third of the revenues would go to “property tax relief,” one-third to fund cultural attractions like bike trails, and one-third to local governments to use on whatever they want.

The Register coverage has been mostly cheerleader pieces on how great an idea this is, and how “Yes to Destiny” would help fund the things that make Des Moines a great place to live. They've been mostly dismissive of opposition as based on knee-jerk anti-tax sentiment, or on mistrust of local governments because of things like the CIETC scandal.

As much as I hate to find myself in agreement with the Grover Norquist wing of the Republican Party, I strongly oppose this tax proposal.

For me, it's really simple. The sales tax is regressive, and raising it would impact lower and middle-income people disproportionately. In theory, property tax cuts will offset the tax hike, but corporations and high-end homeowners will get most of the benefit from property tax cuts. Renters or those who live in inexpensive homes will just be getting a tax hike.

If corporations are so excited about these cultural amenities as a way to attract quality employees, then let them fund those initiatives without demanding a property tax cut for business at the same time. 

I'm all for spending more on the arts, music, and bike trails, but I'm not for raising the most regressive tax to do so. The Des Moines Partnership and Chamber of Commerce types who will wring their hands if “Destiny” fails to pass should ask the higher-income Iowans to chip in for culture.

“A bill working its way through the Iowa Legislature would provide tax incentives for a “Web search portal business” if that business invests at least $200 million in the state. . . In Council Bluffs, the Council Bluffs Industrial Foundation is assembling 180 acres of land north of Lake Manawa. The foundation, which is affiliated with the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce, will not say whether the land is for a Google project.

“No estimates were available for the amount of money that the company could receive from the incentives in the bill. The incentives involve sales, use and property tax exemptions for certain kinds of equipment and electricity.

“The City of Council Bluffs is considering offering up to $48 million in local property tax rebates over 20 years for whatever company builds on the land being assembled north of Lake Manawa. Those incentives would be in addition to the state incentives.

“Google announced earlier this year that it was building a $600 million data center in Lenoir, N.C., that would employ 210 people. State and local incentives for that project could be worth more than $260 million. The incentives include sales tax exemptions on electricity over 30 years.”
  Omaha World Herald, April 19, 2007

for the rest of the story, keep reading . .

“. . . the Iowa House has approved a

package of incentives to encourage more film production and development in Iowa. 

House File 892 creates . . . a variety of tax

incentives . . . will provide . . . an income tax credit . . .also allows an Iowa-based business an investment tax credit . . .  Finally, it has an income tax exclusion . . .

“These incentives will assist film makers with the expenses of producing a film, and make Iowa more competitive with other states that already have incentives for film projects. “

  By Speaker of the House Pat Murphy

“I never made an investment decision based on the tax code. . . .[I]f you are giving away money, I will take it.  If you want to give me inducements for something I am going to do anyway, I will take it.  But good business people do not do things because of inducements, they do it because they can see they are going to be able to earn the cost of captital out of their own intelligence and organization of resources.”

  By Paul O’Neill, former CEO, Alcoa and  former Secretary of the Treasury, quoted in THE GREAT AMERICAN JOBS SCAM

Where there’s a will, there’s a way!! I know how to get the money for Iowa’s clean elections bill. And is it ever SWEET!

Look here: Plug the Wal-Mart Loophole

It’s real tax money that now gets slyly siphoned out of the state and turned into tax-free profits for Wal-Mart and other devious corporations who operate in many states. They shift their money around, turning Iowa profits into “expenses” that they “owe” to their other pockets in other states where the money is not taxed. Eventually it becomes untaxed profits.

The fix is a reform known as “combined reporting” and it could have brought us $99 million in the year 2002. That’s FAR MORE than the ten million that we supposedly can’t find for VOICE.

We know where it is and we know how to get it. What are we waiting for, more campaign contributions to Patrick Murphy from Wal-Mart?

cross posted at http://iowavoters.or…

All this presidential stuff is okay, I guess.  But really people, even as a hard-core politics geek there is no way in heck I’m going to maintain interest and enthusiasm for 330-odd days until the caucuses, let alone the more than 20 months until the general.  We need something else to focus on as well or we will all go starkers, our friends and family will shun us.

Lately, my gaze has drifted lower towards local governance, especially local governement finance and economic development issues.  When we talk about economic development and growth in Iowa (as in most states now) the word, TIF enters the conversation pretty quickly.  More on TIFs and their uses and overuses on the flip.