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07 Apr

AirTran Subsidy Remarks

Bob Weeks

Following are remarks I am delivering to several groups, including the Wichita City Council, in April 2005.

AirTran Subsidy is Moving in Wrong Direction

We were persuaded to accept the AirTran subsidy in 2002 as a temporary measure, to allow AirTran to build a presence here, and that the subsidy would no longer be needed at some time. But now we see that the situation is moving in the opposite direction, as AirTran asks for even a larger subsidy.

Economic Impact Overstated

The argument that many Fair Fares supporters make is flawed. They are grossly — I would say even speciously — overstating the importance of the airport to our local economy.

As an example, Mr. Troy Carlson, then Chairman of Fair Fares, wrote a letter that was published on September 16, 2004 in the Wichita Eagle. In that letter he claimed $2.4 billion economic benefit from the Fair Fares program ($4.8 billion for the entire state). I was curious about how these figures were derived. Through correspondence With Mr. Steve Flesher, air service development director for the city of Wichita, I learned that the basis for them is a study by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University that estimates the economic impact of the airport at $1.6 billion annually. In this study, the salaries of the employees of Cessna and Bombardier, because these companies use the airport’s facilities, are counted as economic impact dollars that the airport is responsible for generating.

To me, this accounting doesn’t make sense on several levels. For one thing, if we count the economic impact of the income of these employees as belonging to the airport, what then do we say about the economic impact of Cessna and Bombardier? We would have to count it as very little, because the impact of their employees’ earnings has been assigned to the airport.

Or suppose that Cessna tires of being on the west side of town, so it moves east and starts using Jabara Airport. Would Cessna’s economic impact on Sedgwick County be any different? I think it wouldn’t. But its impact on the Wichita airport would now be zero. Similar reasoning would apply if Cessna built its own runway.

Or it may be that someday Cessna or Bombardier will ask Sedgwick County for some type of economic subsidy, and they will use these same economic impact dollars in their justification. But these dollars will have already been used, as they were attributed to the airport.

It is a convenient circumstance that these two manufacturers happen to be located near the airport. To credit the airport with the economic impact of these companies — as though the airport was involved in the actual manufacture of airplanes instead of providing an incidental (but important) service — is to grossly overstate the airport’s role and its economic importance.

To its credit, the WSU CEDBR study does provide some figures with the manufacturing employees excluded. The impact without the manufacturing employees included is estimated at $183 million, or about 11 percent of the $1.6 billion claimed earlier.

Structural Changes in Airfares

In the past few months, most American airlines have simplified their fare structures. Notably they have dramatically cut last-minute walk-up fares, which are the type of high fares that AirTran was supposed to provide an alternative to. In light of these structural changes in airfares, we do not know what would happen to airfares in Wichita if AirTran left.

Fares to the West May Hold Clue

Since AirTran doesn’t fly to the west, it may be that looking at westbound fares could give us a clue as to what eastbound fares would be in AirTran’s absence. I took three eastern cities (all served by AirTran) and three western cities and compared airfares for a Tuesday through Thursday trip booked two days in advance. The westbound tickets averaged $74 higher than eastbound — an increase, but not anywhere near the magnitude that subsidy supporters claim fares would rise by if AirTran leaves. I would welcome someone with more experience than me researching this.

Subsidies Distort Markets

The subsidy distorts the market process through which individuals and businesses decide how to most productively allocate capital.

Subsidies Create Dependence on Government

When government pays a subsidy to one company or industry, it creates an environment where others expect a subsidy, too. For example, we shouldn’t expect any other airline to start service to Wichita unless they receive a subsidy like AirTran does.

Companies in other industries see local government as a source of subsidy, so they ask for subsidies to locate to Wichita. Even local established companies threaten to leave Wichita unless they receive subsidies. This creates an environment where, year after year, local governments make investment decisions for us instead of relying on the collective judgment of free market allocation of resources. This corporate welfare — which is what the AirTran subsidy is, plain and simple — is very harmful.

Other Articles

“The Downside of Being the Air Cap” by Harry R. Clements at wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/the-downside-of-being-the-air-cap/. Mr. Clements’s article makes a striking conclusion as to why airfares in Wichita were so high.
“Stretching Figures Strains Credibility” at wichitaliberty.org/wichita-news-media/stretching-figures-strains-credibility/. This article contains a link to the WSU CEDBR study.
“Letter to County Commissioners Regarding AirTran Subsidy” at wichitaliberty.org/sedgwick-county-government/letter-to-county-commissioners-regarding-airtran-subsidy/
“End Corporate Welfare, Starting with Industrial Revenue Bonds” at wichitaliberty.org/role-of-government/end-corporate-welfare-starting-with-industrial-revenue-bonds/

06 Apr

Poetry: Welcome New Council Members

Bob Weeks

Contributed by Kenneth Kindler

WELCOME NEW COUNCIL MEMBERS

I AM OLD AND SICK AND GETTING GRAY
I DON’T KNOW WHERE I WILL GET THE MONEY THAT THE CITY WANTS ME TO PAY.

I WONDER ABOUT THIS TOWN THAT WE LIVE IN.
WHERE THE MAYOR SPENDS HIS TIME DOWN IN OLD TOWN FIGHTING SIN.

WE SUBSUDIZE A AIRLINE THAT MANY OF US CANNOT AFFORD TO FLY.
WE HAVE SPENT MILLIONS DOWNTOWN, I WONDER WHY.

HOW MANY OF US CAN AFFORD TO PAY
FOR PLACES THAT ONLY A FEW CAN PLAY.

DO WE NEED A DOWNTOWN ARENA?
A WATER WALK.
NOW WE ARE GOING TO SELL CENTURY II OR IS THAT JUST TALK.

OUR LEADERS HAVE HAD MANY MONEY LOSING SCEMES IN THE PAST.
EXPLORATION PLACE AND THE ICE RINK WERE A COUPLE
BUT THEY WERN’T THE LAST.

WHEN WILL IT STOP THIS INSANE PLAN
TO EMPTY OUR POCKETS AS FAST AS THEY CAN.

WE HAVE BEEN BULLYED, LIED TO AND RAN INTO THE GROUND.
NOW IS THE TIME FOR US TO REBOUND.

SO COUNCIL MEMBERS WE WANT YOU TO KNOW
IF THIS KEEPS UP YOU ARE GOING TO GO.

SO NEW MEMBERS WE HOPE THAT YOU WILL TAKE HEED
AND PUT YOUR COMMUNITY AHEAD OF YOUR GREED.

Kenneth Kindler

06 Apr

Tax funds finance Kansas school finance lawsuit

Bob Weeks

Contributed by Kansas Taxpayers Network

By Karl Peterjohn

There might not be funds for public school classrooms but for 15 Kansas school districts there is money for financing lawsuits. Since the 1998-99 school year, $2,095,020 has been spent in public funds to pay for the school finance litigation and lawsuit.

This outrage is a classic case of the school districts biting the state’s hand that fed the 300 Kansas school districts with over $2.7 billion in state funds. Of course, the state does not have any money that it has not taken from taxpayers so you and I pay our taxes to the schools and to the state paying for both the plaintiffs and defendants in this legal battle.

A portion of that money is taken by these school districts and then used to sue for more spending that will require higher taxes. Sadly, Kansas already has the highest property taxes on business in our five state region as well as the second highest taxes on homeowners too so this litigation worsens our tax climate.

This is not a new event. The school finance lawsuits stretch back into the late 1980’s. The lead attorney on the most recent lawsuit, Alan Rupe, has been involved in all of these cases going back to the 1980’s. The 15 school districts misusing their tax funds to finance these lawsuits are led by the Salina and Dodge City public schools. The other school districts financing this litigation are: Arkansas City, Augusta, Derby, El Dorado, Emporia, Fort Scott, Great Bend, Hays, Independence, Leavenworth, Manhattan, Newton, and Winfield (For a listing of the tax dollars spent for these lawsuits between 1998-to-2005 see www.kansastaxpayers.com).

If the legislative conservatives were serious about addressing the litigation crisis in Kansas public schools these expenditures would be stopped. This misuse of tax funds for trial attorneys should stop immediately. Any school finance legislation passed by the Kansas legislature that does not address this abuse of taxpayer funds is a disgrace.

Last year the Topeka public schools faced a financial scandal when it was revealed that roughly $1/2 million had been paid to pay fraudulent checks in central Asia. The schools had such lax financial controls that numerous bogus checks got paid. The schools continued to operate despite this long distance financial flim-flam. Sadly, the mainstream Kansas press outside of Topeka has largely ignored this scandal and treated it as an isolated event.

This is another indication that there are plenty of funds available for financing Kansas public schools. The latest federal data indicate that Kansans, despite having lower than average incomes, are paying substantially more than the national average for our public schools. Kansans are paying more per pupil than for public schools in our neighboring states too. Higher expenditures mean higher taxes. Being a high tax state is one of the reasons that Kansas has suffered the largest reduction in private sector jobs during this century according to federal data.

If the school districts can continue to litigate their way to higher taxes and spending by misusing tax dollars, the future of this state will be grim. Lawsuits promoting higher government spending and higher taxes will drive jobs and businesses to taxpayer friendlier states.

30 Mar

The downside of Being the Air Cap

Bob Weeks

Harry R. Clements of Wichita contributed this article, which is a summary of a larger study he performed. Click here to read the full study in pdf format.

Mr. Clements’s article makes a striking conclusion as to why airfares in Wichita were so high. I would be curious as to whether any of our government leaders have read the study. We should also ask why our government leaders are not performing research like this when they propose to spend large sums of taxpayer money.

Wichita State’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research recently placed a guest article of mine on their website. It concerns a statistical study based on the level of air travel generated at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport compared to five other cities in the region, in which the data shows Wichita is ranked dead last, and an attempt to figure out why we do so poorly in this type of “competition.” It further questions whether our city’s substantial airline subsidy is worth the money spent. Since the article was written for consumption by professionals and is based on what might be considered obscure econometric techniques, it isn’t very suitable for reading by the lay readers of this paper. But I think the results are important enough that they should be seen by our town’s citizens, the decision making politicians that represent them, and the local media that should air such issues.

The cities compared are Des Moines, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Omaha, Tulsa and our own, over a recent six year period. The important factors affecting airline traffic generation were determined by slimming down a list obtained from the airline industry’s primary trade organization, the Airline Transport Association, with a couple of additions that together with theirs explain the greatest part of the differences in passenger results among these cities. These most important factors are population and per capita income (the more the better for these two) and a novel one, the number of pilots in the city’s population (in this case the lower the better). Wichita not only ranks next to last in population and income among the six — not favorable — but has an astounding more than twice the number of pilots, per capita, than the other cities’ which is really unfavorable. If Wichita were, so to speak, more like these other cities we could expect our airline passenger traffic to double. This is certainly a reason why other cities in our region do not have to rely on subsidies to generate their traffic.

Wichita’s effort to maintain its aircraft industry and attract other high income new businesses — for instance bio-technology, but not call centers and specialty retailers — will tend to increase per capita income, and population, but is it possible for an airline subsidy to overcome that which comes with being the Air Capital of the World — a high concentration of pilots, with charter and corporate fleets available, able to fly people wherever they need to go? Should we, if we could figure out how, have a policy to decrease the number of pilots? That problem is the downside of being the Air Cap.

29 Mar

Why government spending is (mostly) bad

Bob Weeks

Government spending replaces the judgment of the market with the judgment of politicians. The judgment of the market refers to the billions of decisions that we collectively make each day, decisions that we freely make, that we believe will advance our self-interest. That is to say, the market is characterized by mutual agreement and voluntary consent.

What about the judgment of politicians? In a free market, in order to effect a transaction with someone, each side has to please the other. But politicians have the tax system, which allows them to take money from us by force. Then, when they decide how to spend money, decisions are often made to satisfy those who seek political favoritism instead of participating in meaningful economic activity. So government spending, then, grossly distorts the free market system.

The more government makes spending decisions for us, the poorer we become.

There is a limited set of things that government does well and should spend money to do. At the national level, we know that there are those who wish to do us harm, so we need a national defense. Locally we need police, courts, and prisons to keep us safe from criminals. There may be cases involving infrastructure where government is more efficient than private industry.

At the federal level, though, about two-thirds of the budget consists of the government taking money from one person and giving it to someone else to whom it does not belong. Both major parties are equally guilty of this. This type of government spending is wrong, no matter who does it. As the economist Walter E. Williams says:

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That’s why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there’s a majority consensus.

26 Mar

TABOR Criticism Analysis

From the introduction to an analysis by the Tax Foundation:

The state of Colorado is under assault. Opponents of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) are waging a well coordinated but misleading attack on Colorado’s reputation. This attack takes the form of a number of rankings and statistics that purport to show that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights has decimated Colorado. These rankings and statistics are based on the assumption that if Colorado ranks poorly on things like the adequacy of prenatal care and education spending, then Colorado is failing to adequately care for and educate its citizens, and that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights must be to blame. A closer look at the attacks shows that they fail to prove that the amount a state spends on health care and education determines quality, and they also fail to tell the whole truth about the rankings and statistics of the state of Colorado.

The full article is here: An Analysis of Misleading Attacks on Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights

25 Mar

Taxed Out of Business

Bob Weeks

From the Junction City Daily Union, March 24, 2005

By Kay Blanken
Special to The Daily Union

Friday evening, many of us in Junction City opened our newspaper to the headline, “Local Alco Closing Its Doors.” The Kansas City Star reported that 20 Alco stores across Kansas were closing their doors. This is a Kansas corporation that began in Abilene.

I, as a business person, am not surprised. Not just Alco is closing its doors; Kansas has lost many stores and companies in the past four years. Is it bad business practices? I don’t think so. Many of the companies and businesses have been successful for many years. What then is happening? Starting three years ago, the state began raising the fees to Kansas businesses and companies trying to make up for the budget shortfall that our Legislature created by overspending. This overspending came from both Republicans and Democrats. Because the Kansas Constitution forbids ending a year without a balanced budget, legislators had to find a way.

To balance the budget, the Legislature hit many businesses with fees that do not pertain to their type of business. You paid the fees or you risked forfeiting your business. Many of us have our life’s blood in these businesses. We paid the fees.

This year we again received a new shock. Businesses pay a franchise fee for the privilege of doing business in Kansas. On Feb. 7, Kansas businesses received notice that the franchise tax would max out at $5,008. This is based on the gross your business does before you pay any expenses. Two weeks later we received notice the maximum would be $20,000 — plus a $55 fee for the secretary of state. Here is the letter we received:

Dear Business Customer:

Last spring the Kansas Legislature passed SB 147, which requires businesses to pay a franchise tax (we have always paid a franchise tax) to the Kansas Department of Revenue and a separate franchise fee to the Secretary of State. Both are due the 15th day of the fourth month following the tax year end — e.g. April 15, 2005, for entities with a December 31, 2004, tax year end.

KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE — franchise tax (maximum $20,000.00)

Business entities that have $100,000.00 net worth or more must pay to the Kansas Department of Revenue a franchise tax of 0.125% of the total net worth. Business entities required to pay the tax will file a return with the Department of Revenue, which must be accompanied by taxpayer’s balance sheet. (I can’t find anyone who does not have to pay.)

Do not send your franchise fee and annual report to the Department of Revenue. Your business will forfeit if the correct annual report and franchise fee are not received by the Secretary of State on or before your forfeiture.

The letter goes on to tell us how to file and report. What it does not say is how we are to get the money to pay the franchise fee. Many of us in business are just now coming out of a very long downturn. Many have had to borrow money to keep their doors open, and then many have not made it.

Now many of you reading this will say, “This don’t affect me.” Sorry, but it does. Do you work for a business or company? If you do, you may not have a job for much longer. Or you may find yourself moving to a state that cares about the business and economic climate. Some of you may be saying, “This is only one tax. What’s the beef?” Wrong.

Businesses pay corporate income tax, which is 4 percent of net income. In addition, net income in excess of $50,000 is subject to a 3.35 percent surtax. The tax law goes on to say “Kansas corporate income tax is calculated using the apportioned net income and the corporate income tax rate of 4 percent for the first $50,000 and 7.35 percent for excess above $50,000.” Then businesses face insurance tax, 2 percent; intangible property tax, counties can tax up to 2.25 percent on intangible property; personal property tax; inventory tax; state sales tax 5.3 percent; city 1 percent; county 1 percent (at this time); unemployment insurance tax from 0.08 percent to 7.4 percent depending on our rating (our rating is based on the willingness of an employee performing his/her job); worker’s compensation insurance (premiums are calculated per $100 of annual employees wages; wonder why that pay raise didn’t come through?), property tax, 25 percent; Social Security tax, 7.65 percent — and I could go on with other licenses/permits and fees, both local and state. So why did Alco call it quits?

There are a lot of reasons why businesses cannot make it in today’s climate. Buying power is one. A small business pays more for goods than a large conglomerate. But we all pay the same type of taxes and have the same routine costs.

With Alco closing, Junction City, Geary County and USD 475 will still receive property taxes, but they will not receive the sales tax revenue Alco generated. And our community will no longer receive Alco’s charitable donations, leaving a lot of good projects to suffer.

At a town hall meeting on Saturday, a candidate for the local school board asked about school finance. The response from state Rep. Barbara Craft was, “We know we need more funding for schools, and maybe we will have to go to the businesses. Oh, maybe I had better rephrase that.”

The state’s mission statement is, “Our state is constitutionally restrained from overspending, providing a foundation of fiscal integrity for our business climate.” So what happened to throw the state so far off of its budget? Why are so many businesses closing or going out of state to do business? The last count I had was more than 1,300 businesses over three years, and I have no idea of how many jobs were lost. Why are cities raising the fees for services?

What affects business also affects you. It’s time we all became concerned and start asking our elected representatives the “why” questions.

Kay Blanken is a Junction City commissioner and co-owner of B&K Enterprises.

25 Mar

Frisky Flunkies in Atchison County

Bob Weeks

From Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

The Wall Street Journal’s “Tony & Tacky” section mentioned one Kansas school district on the day the Kansas senate was debating the largest one-year state spending hike for public schools in this century and according to one legislator, in state history. The $127 million increase in state spending would be in addition to the current $2.7 billion the state is already spending. School districts in Kansas are already spending millions of dollars to lobby the legislature, promote student and school employee contacts to try and influence legislators, and sue the state over school finance. School superintendents, like Wichita’s tax ‘n spend Winston Brooks, have been busy at speaking appearances promoting public school spending growth in excess of $1.4 billion.

In the 1980’s the Kansas City, Missouri schools spent well over a $1 billion proving that throwing tax money at the public schools did not improve student achievement or educational quality. This school district, which has an pupil enrollment similar to Wichita’s, spent all this money and still saw student test scores dropped.

A wise philosopher warned, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Kansas is continuing to try and emulate the Kansas City, Missouri public schools spending policy.

Kansas spending for public schools that includes all state, local, and federal tax funds has far exceeded inflation during the last dozen years and now tops $4 billion (KTN has posted at www.kanstaxpayers.com school KS Department of Education finance data on all Kansas public schools from the late 1980’s through the 2003-04 school year). There are slightly less than 445,000 public school students in Kansas. The brief article cited below from today’s Wall Street Journal provides some clues as to more important educational problems than simply throwing taxpayers’ money at the schools and hoping that some of it sticks. Let’s hope that Kansas follows Atchison High School’s policy instead of Atchison County’s D- plan.

The Wall Street Journal said:

Tony & Tacky

Friday, March 25, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
FRISKY FLUNKIES: Right now, students in Atchison County, Kan., need a C average in order to participate in extracurricular activities. As of next year, however, even a D-minus average will be good enough. A district school board in northeastern Kansas voted last week to lower its threshold after asserting that efforts to determine eligibility under the C rule were distracting teachers from their job of helping pupils learn. Not everyone is buying that argument. Terrance Jordan, the principal and sports director of Atchison High School–which, despite its name, is in a different district–told the March 16 Atchison Daily Globe that his school is considering stricter guidelines: “We’re here to educate kids; extracurricular activities are a bonus. . . . Kids have to be able to do what they’re asked to do before they can play.”

25 Mar

Clunker law epealed, surliness not

Bob Weeks

I received this message from someone who applied for the refund of overpaid sales tax that many in Kansas paid as part of the “clunker law.” That law attempted to prevent cheating on sales tax by those who self-reported the price they paid for a car. Some people lied and paid less sales tax than they should have. The state started assessing sales taxes based on an assessment system that sometimes overvalued a car. This year the legislature passed a law allowing those who overpaid to seek refunds. A good idea — but sometimes, as this story illustrates, a bit difficult to take advantage of.

Last July I purchased a automobile from a gentleman in Missouri. It was an old clunker that needed much repair as a school car for my daughter for $500. The car had several mechanical problems, had been wrecked and had hail damage. It was worth $500, no more, no less. Even though it had 210,000+ miles, I thought we could have some fun fixing it up. When I went to get a tag for it, they county office informed me that I would have to pay sales tax on $3,400! After much unsatisfactory explanation from the clerk, her supervisor stated “If I wanted a tag, I would have to pay the money”. Sounds like extortion to me. I, then, had to pay sales taxes on the repairs also.

Our great legislature has since decided that they over stepped their authority and a rebate is in order. I went out to the Kansas State Government website to read the process of getting my money back. They stated that I need a copy of the receipt that the county gave me when I overpaid the taxes along with one of the following list:

Copy of the bill of sale.
Copy of the cancelled check used to purchase the car.
Copies of both the front and back of the title.

Sounds easy enough. I went to the county courthouse and stood in line for over an hour, finally having the clerk tell me “we don’t keep any records of the taxes you paid and cannot help you with a copy of the receipt”. She did inform me that the title I needed copies of, was the title from the ORIGINAL owner, which they took from me when I overpaid the taxes, and sent to the State of Kansas.

When I returned home, I spent a couple of hours digging through all my records and finally found the original receipt for sales taxes overpaid. Since I paid cash (the gentleman from Missouri would not accept a personal check, go figure) and in Missouri, the title IS the bill of sale, I came to the realization, that the State had me in a catch 22. I found a phone number on the trusty web site, and gave the department of vehicle taxes a ring. They acknowledged the problem, but gave me a solution. I could write to the Kansas Department of Motor Vehicle Records (downstairs from them) and request a form from them to request that they send a copy of my original title to me. I could then send the copy of the title back to the Vehicle tax department along with the copy of the county tax receipt to get my money back!?????

I thought about it for a while and decided to give the Vehicle Tax department another call, just to get it straight. I was up to the second level of supervisor and asked him if he really wanted me to—–

Send a request for vehicle registration and history to the Motor Vehicle Records Department (downstairs from him).
They would send me a form.
I would fill out the form (did I mention the $15 fee) and send it back to the Motor Vehicle Records Department (downstairs).
They would send me a copy of the original title from the gentleman from Missouri.
I would send it to the Vehicle tax department along with the copy of the tax overpayment receipt (back upstairs).

I asked him if the process sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to me. I also asked that if I just sent a copy of my title, maybe he could walk downstairs to the title office and cross check it with the original. He said “I will have to get back to you on that one” an after about a week, I actually receive a call from him on my machine! He indicated that I would indeed have to request the title history from the office downstairs and pay the $15.

25 Mar

Senator Ruth Teichman, Republican in Name Only?

Bob Weeks

This is an interesting analysis that I received from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network. What Karl doesn’t mention is that Senator Teichman is a Republican.

Bob,

This response is so interesting and the timing is so remarkable that I want to submit it for Wichita Liberty. Sen. Teichman responds to my mid-February email that I sent her opposing SB 58. Shortly thereafter, she voted to APPROVE SB 58 on the floor of the Kansas senate. March 22, 2005 the Kansas house votes for SB 58 in an unamended form so it will go directly to the governor for her signature.

Today, March 24, I received her response to my February 15 e-mail! The timing of this response provides a fascinating insight into the Kansas legislature in general and Senator Teichman in particular. You might also find it interesting to know that Sen. Teichman’s lifetime KTN fiscal vote rating is only 9.7%, and is now the lowest of the currently serving Kansas senators. Sen. Buhler’s was 3.9% but he was beat last November. Her fiscal vote rating is going to continue to be low as Senator Teichman continues to mistreat taxpayers.

Karl Peterjohn

Ruth Teichman wrote:
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:25:50 -0600
From: “Ruth Teichman”
To:
Subject: Re: SB 58 Arena tax bill

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your concerns.
Senator Ruth Teichman

>>> kpeterjohn 02/15/05 12:58 >>>

Senators:

A quick reminder of six reasons why the Kansas Taxpayers Network testified in opposition to SB 58 in senate tax committee earlier this month.

1) SB 58 makes a bad law, KSA 12-187 worse.

2) SB 58 adds a retroactive provision to KSA 12-187. KTN is adamant in opposing retroactive provisions to state tax law.

3) SB 58 treats Kansas citizens as second-class to local units who can ignore state law with impugnity if this law is passed.

4) One of the reasons that this vote won by a very small margin (52-to-48)city, county, and state tax funded organizations donated over $45,000 for the “Vote Yea” campaign conducted by the arena tax hike proponents. This misuse of tax funds outspent the “Vote No” campaign by better than 2-to-1. This was a gross misuse of tax funds including turnpike and regents spending.

5) The arena will be a money losing failure if it is built using the current plan. The plan itself projects annual losses in the range of $800,000 a year. I frankly believe the losses will be larger than projected. This would be added to a large number of governmentally financed projects that are losing money in downtown Wichita.

6) This bill should be amended to extend the requirement in KSA 12-187 requiring voter approval of local sales taxes to be extended to cover local property taxes too.

We have had some folks ask about SB 58 appearing on Kansas Taxpayers Network’s 2005 vote rating. This will be a vote that is included for the reasons cited above.

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