Gov. Brewer’s Tinkerbell Tax Plan: Just clap your hands and believe!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Gov. Brewer has been drinking the Kool-Aid offered by House Speaker Kirk Adams and his bogus-named "jobs creation" bill aka the corporate welfare tax giveaway plan that will increase your residential property taxes and worsen the structural revenue deficit in Arizona.

Gov. Brewer yesterday outlined her own Tinkerbell Tax Plan: just clap your hands and believe! (the essence of faith based supply-side "trickle down" conservative economic policies).

Howard Fischer reports Brewer seeks business tax cuts, 'streamlining' of state universities:

Gov. Jan Brewer proposed an ambitious package of future tax cuts for business Tuesday that she said are necessary to improve the state economy.

Eileen Klein, the governor’s chief of staff, said Brewer wants lawmakers to approve the package when they convene in January. But she said the governor would like their effect delayed until 2013 to coincide with the expiration of the temporary sales tax hike voters approved to impose on themselves earlier this year.

In the meantime, Brewer said she intends to trim even more state funding from the three universities. That comes even as Don Cardon, whom the governor named Tuesday to head the Arizona Commerce Authority, said the state needs to be looking at the schools as a key to economic development.

Klein said Brewer specifically wants a sharp cut in the state’s corporate income tax. That rate is now close to 7 percent; Klein said it should be cut to about 5 percent.

But the cut would be even deeper for some firms. Brewer wants to change tax laws to allow manufacturers whose products are sold mostly in other states or countries to all but escape paying any Arizona corporate income taxes at all.

Separately, Brewer wants to reduce the property taxes that businesses now pay, largely to schools and local governments.

One traditional problem with that is when businesses pay less, the burden generally gets shifted to homeowners. The governor said her “goal’’ is to keep that shift from occurring.

But neither Brewer nor Klein would explain how that could be accomplished. [Just clap your hands and believe!] And the governor refused to say she will veto any tax package that ultimately means homeowners pay more.

“It won’t happen with my blessing, that’s for sure,’’ the governor explained. “Certainly, I have a Legislature I have to work with.’’

Yeah, funny thing about Republicans having a super-majority in both chambers: you are irrelevant, governor. If Captain Kool-Aid, House Speaker Kirk Adams, wants to pass his corporate welfare tax giveaway plan and stick it to Arizona's residential homeowners, Republicans have the votes to override your threatened veto — not much of a threat, is it?

Klein said she and the governor are not worried about approving a tax-cut plan now that takes effect the moment the state stops getting the $1 billion a year the temporary sales tax produces.

“We know that things are going to get better over time,’’ Klein said. “We know the economy is going to recover.’’ [Just clap your hands and believe!]

And about that future economic development: Brewer announced Don Cardon’s selection to head her Arizona Commerce Authority. Cardon, outlining his ideas on economic development, said the state needs to reconsider how it treats its universities.

“If we’re going to mature as a state, we have got to get to a point where we look at our universities and we look at research and development not as a liability, not as an environment where the elite reside … but where our hope rests in a knowledge-basis necessary in a global economy that’s expanding,’’ he said.

That’s not going to happen, at least not this coming budget year. In fact, Brewer said she will be “streamlining’’ the schools, reducing their state aid.

Other key elements in the governor’s economic development plan include:

• Creating a “deal closing fund’’ for the government to provide cash to companies willing to expand or relocate here.

• Expanding the tax credits available to corporations that conduct research and development in Arizona.

• Eliminating capital gains for investments made in small businesses.

It's a corporate tax holiday! And you, Arizona taxpayers, are going to get stuck with the bill — and suffer the consequences. Don't say I never warned you. I told you so!