Fool’s Gold: Sales tax hike will turn Arizona into N. Korea, Cuba

by David Safier

My jaw drops in amazement when I read most of the Goldwater Institute's Daily Emails, but today, G.I. is at its jaw-dropping best.

G.I. has gotten lots of push back for its assertion that Prop 100 will cost Arizona 14,000 jobs. Some UA economists gave the lie to G.I's figures, noting they don't take into account the $442.5 million in federal matching funds we'll lose if we have to cut programs that get matching funds.

It's pretty simple, really. All those hundreds of millions in federal dollars we'll lose employ lots of people. And those employed people spend money, which helps preserve and create more jobs. That means, if the money doesn't come into the state, we lose jobs.

Byron Schlomach, the Director of G.I.'s Center for Economic Prosperity, isn't about to take that kind of logic lying down. No sir. But he's got no answer. So he just spouts nonsense.

Here's what passes for logic in Schlomach's piece:

Government spending doesn't create jobs. We know this because, if government spending created jobs, North Korea and Cuba would be the most prosperous nations in the world. But they're not, so government spending doesn't create jobs.

Seriously. I'm not making it up. Read it for yourself.

The absurdity of this tortured economic reasoning, based on a popular Depression-era theory, can be illustrated by looking at a photo of earth taken at night. If the state economists were right, North Korea would be more than a big, dark blot. North Korea and Cuba would outshine the world with their prosperity.

Even Glenn Beck might be ashamed of that one. No, I take it back. That's classic Glenn Beck.

What makes Schlomach certain he's right and the UA folks are wrong? Because G.I. had Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University create a "model" that proves the tax hike will cost Arizona jobs. The "model" is actually a half page table with no written explanation, from a conservative/libertarian institute which says on its website it is "grounded in the principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets."

And the model completely ignores the loss of $442.5 million in federal matching funds.

To recap: a sales tax hike will turn us into North Korea and Cuba because a half page table with missing data and no written explanation says so.

Here's more of Schlomach's ironclad evidence that Beacon Hill is right and UA is wrong:

So which should you believe, the models of the university economists or the Beacon Hill model?

Who are you gonna believe, a bunch of professors at UA or . . . a bunch of professors at Suffolk University? Convincing logic, isn't it?

G.I.'s problem is, when its lies and distortions are challenged, it's forced to defend the indefensible. So its highly paid "experts" with their 6 figure salaries either have to resort to the kind of illogical "logic" Schlomach  spouts, or the Zen koans of Matthew Ladner. (Who can forget Ladner's pearl of wisdom when I asked him, "If bus drivers are bureaucrats, doesn't that mean teachers are bureaucrats too?" He replied, "All baseballs are balls, but not all balls are baseballs." Way to earn your salary, Matthew!)

The Goldwater Institute needs to have its nonsense challenged over and over until people see G.I.for  what it is: a political propaganda machine which starts with the answer it wants and works back to the "facts" that support its assertions.