Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I provided a breakdown of HB2647, a "Rio Nuevo bill" in Downtown developers, 'crony capitalism' and the Arizona legislature's Rio Nuevo Board. It is essentially tax abatement subsidies (incentives) for favored developers in Downtown Tucson.
As I alluded to in the post, the Arizona legislature banned tax abatement subsidies (incentives) for retail development in Maricopa and Pinal counties in July 2007. "Arizona adopted the following law, A.R.S. Sec. 42-6210, which bars municipalities in the Phoenix metropolitan region from providing tax breaks or incentives to retail development. The penalty for cities that violate the law is a reduction in the revenue that they receive from the state equal to the amount of the incentive." Bans on Tax Abatements – Arizona | The New Rules Project.
So if our Arizona legislature, a wholly owned subsidiary of business interest lobbyists, felt compelled to ban tax abatement subsidies (incentives) in 2007, why did a House committee of the Arizona legislature approve tax abatement subsidies (incentives) for favored developers in Downtown Tucson? Panel OKs downtown development incentive.
Because, boys and girls, the legislature seized control of the Rio Nuevo Board from the City of Tucson several years ago. This is only different in kind and degree from the state of Michigan's authoritarian "financial martial law" statute under which the state of Michigan has seized control of school boards and towns, and dismissed the duly elected government representatives and replaced them with a state appointed financial manager who exercises absoute power.
Since the Rio Nuevo Board is the only improvement district in Arizona directly under the control of the Arizona legislature, this is special legislation that favors the Arizona legislature's political subdivision, the Rio Nuevo Board, over similarly situated governmental entities,for which the benefits inure to the Board's favored developers in Dowtown Tucson over other similarly situated developers and business owners. The Arizona legislature and favored Downtown Tucson developers are engaged in crony capitalism. This presents a colorable claim for a violation of constitutional equal protection.
And as I said in my previous post:
The problem, however, is that a handful of wealthy Tucson developers can run to our colonial overlords in the Arizona legislature to get what they want, and to disenfranchise the citizens of the colony of Tucson by usurping their right of local control to make these decisions for themselves. Some might call this "crony capitalism." Some might call this "picking winners and losers" in a free market economy. Some might call this a "regulatory burden" and micromanagement of "matters of purely local control."
And they would be the very same Tea-Publican conservatives who level these charges against the federal government asserting "states' rights." It is a different story, however, when Tea-Publicans are engaged in authoritarianism towards the "liberal blue island" of the City of Tucson. Shameless hypocrites.
UPDATE: Moreover the The GOP 'troika' behind Rio Nuevo, Jonathan "Payday" Paton, Jodi Bain and John Munger, have done nothing more than incur millions of dollars in attorneys fees and litigation costs. Rio Nuevo wants talks with Tucson kept secret.
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