Chicago Style

Imagine what would happen if State Representative Russell Pearce was working on an employer sanctions initiative and a business group, say, the Arizona Association of Landscapers complained that the law would devastate their industry and Pearce responds that he would exempt them from the initiative...in exchange for their contributing $100,000 to the campaign?

Could that possibly be legal?   If the agreement became public wouldn't it be a huge scandal?

The Tribune is reporting that Governor Napolitano entered into just such an arrangement. 

Gov. Janet Napolitano eliminated key elements of a major transportation initiative this week, agreeing not to tax home builders in exchange for their support and $100,000 to kickstart the campaign.

In a secret deal cut this week, developers agreed to back the plan for an ambitious statewide transportation initiative that will raise the state sales tax by 1 penny.

Napolitano eliminated key provisions of the proposed ballot measure that required developers to pay part of the $42 billion plan to finance freeways, trains, buses and other transportation needs across Arizona.

Comments

[Poison]

Wow. That would mean that sales tax would go up to 9.3% in Phoenix and 9.5 in Glendale. Does any place in the entire nation have a higher sales tax?

[Ephram]

The LAST time I went through a jack in the box in Surprise I choked on my food as I looked at the 13.2% sales tax. just look for one higher.

[Litho]

Loved the title on this one. Arizona Governors and corruption, well I never...oh wait,that's right.
Like to point out that if I'm not mistaken pat of this proposed tax will go towards the light rail. And putting this tax into a ballot proposal,touche Nappy.

[todd]

In the case of what the governor has done it is actually legal. This just shows who is running the show in AZ - the land developers. As long as we continue to be dependent on them for most of the growth in the state's economy they will wield a ridiculous amount of power regardless of what party the governor is from.

[Dewey]

Yeah, the land developers do wield a lot of power in this state. It's too bad that innocent victims like our poor governor have to take so many hundreds of thousands of dollars from them because of it. It's so unfair!

[Senator Ron Gould]

Where have all the rugged individualists gone? Rather than standing and fighting a bad plan, these wimps and wussies make a deal.
What is funny though, in the TIME internal poll, the only slight positive answer was "should growth pay for its self".
I don't know maybe bike paths are a critical infrastructure need. Grow some spine money men.

[todd]

Dewey - who said the Governor was a victim. I certainly didn't. She is complicit in the whole problem.

[Jeff]

I think that this is probably legal but ethically questionable. It's also more expensive to us as taxpayers.

Normally, I wouldn't claim that because I'm a firm believer that almost ALL taxes are paid by the people. If you raise a tax on businesses, it increases their overhead which increases their prices and who pays the increased price? That's right, we do. Almost all taxes trickle down to the people. By taxing businesses, etc. the government can hide how much of our income really goes to taxes which, I would wager, is a frightenly high amount.

However, with home builders it's different. There is a built-in padding in home prices - land prices. If it costs you $300,000 for a home, you may be paying $150,000 or so for the house and another $150,000 for the land that it's built on. So if the price of building a home goes up, it's entirely possible (especially in this market) that the price of land will simply go down enough to cover the increase. Which means that, according to the previous example, the $300,000 home could have a new cost of $165,000 for the house but $135,000 for the land if this new transportation bill goes through (I am making up all of these numbers so don't try to infer too much out of them). So prices go up for the businesses but not for consumers. How cool is that.

Unfortunately it seems that our chance to raise revenue without directly hurting the taxpayer has been axed by the governor for $100,000 and the support of the home builders. Ouch! So is the governor doing what's best for the state or what's best for her political agenda? Is the bill doomed to failure without the support of the home builders? Perhaps tax increases don't mean much to a governer making six figures (or is she still in the high 90s?) but to a school teacher making $40,000 or so, it's pretty significant.

[Edward]

Sedona is 9.9...

[NICK]

TALTON,
WERE ARE YOU?
YOU MUST HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ON THIS.

[Dulce]

I couldn't agree more with Greg's posting...which is why I must point out that his reference to Rep. Pearce exempting his friends from the employer sanctions bill actually did happen. Let me explain: Somewhere during the debate on his employer sanctions bill (HB2779) in the House last year, he added this provision:

7. "License":
(c) Does not include:
(i) Any license issued pursuant to title 45 or 49 or rules adopted pursuant to those titles.

Now why would the sponsor want to exempt any licenses from the employer sanctions bill? Do the people who hold licenses under Titles 45 and 49 have the right to knowingly hire unauthorized workers but the rest of us don't?!?! This doesn't seem consistent with what Mr. Pearce says...but nonetheless he exempted them. Who are they - well let's take a look at the activities regulated under these titles: Water and The Environment. Hmmmm...don't you wish you knew who he was exempting when he put this provision in. Here's a clue...it's one of the 5 C's.