Tag: Subsidy
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Are airlines pilots the best judge of airline economics?
I’m not positive about this, but I’m sure that the demand for air travel between Wichita and Oklahoma City is very low. Google maps tells me that the driving time from one city’s downtown to the other is two hours and 30 minutes. The drive to a city’s airport, arriving way early to make sure…
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Wind Power: Why Special Tax Treatment?
A recent article in USA Today (Renewable energy firms clamor for tax breaks) reports on the uncertainty of whether the U.S. Congress will extend the tax credits that subsidize solar and wind power investment. From the article: Some $500 million in investment and production tax credits will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress renews them. Without…
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Wichita’s Naysayers Are Saying Yes to Liberty
Wichita politicians, newspaper editorial writers, and sometimes just plain folks are fond of bashing those they call the “naysayers,” sometimes known as CAVE people. An example is from a recent Opinion Line Extra in the Wichita Eagle: An acquaintance in another city refers to the anti-everything people as “CAVE” people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything). I…
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Reverend Kevass Harding’s Wichita TIF District: A Bad Deal in Several Ways
Remarks to be delivered to the Wichita City Council on August 12, 2008. There’s several reasons why this council should not approve this request for TIF financing. Material in today’s agenda packet doesn’t specify an amount, but past materials indicated that the project was $2.5 million short of the total needed for the project. Now…
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Downtown Wichita Arena TIF District
Remarks to Wichita City Council, August 5, 2008. When I’ve been talking to people in Wichita, I find there is great confusion about the way that TIF districts work. This confusion serves to obfuscate what really happens with TIF districts: the TIF developers get to use their own property taxes to pay for things that…
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Wind Production Tax Credits Aren’t Free of Cost
Nancy Jackson of the Climate and Energy Project in Kansas has some tips for citizens and candidates to use when talking about global warming. The article Tips for citizens and candidates – talking about the Production Tax Credit contains warnings about what will happen if the Production Tax Credit (PTC) isn’t extended beyond its scheduled…
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Wichita City Council’s misunderstanding of tax increment financing
On July 8, 2008 I testified at a public hearing at a Wichita city council meeting. Afterward, a council member told me that I had a “glaring error” in my arguments. I won’t identify this member in order to avoid embarrassing the member. The minutes of the meeting don’t identify the member who said this,…
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Government Art in Wichita
Do we really want government art in Wichita? David Boaz, in his recent book The Politics of Freedom: Taking on The Left, The Right and Threats to Our Liberties writes this in a chapter titled “The Separation of Art and State”: It is precisely because art has power, because it deals with basic human truths,…
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Jack Pelton, Leader of Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group
Earlier this year, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius created the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP) and appointed Cessna Aircraft Company chairman, president and chief executive officer Jack Pelton as its leader. This was a smart political move by Governor Sebelius. She appears to have put the planning for our state’s energy future in…
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Wichita Old Town Theater’s Bill Warren: No Ideas?
Recently the Wichita City Council approved a no-interest and low-interest loan to Old Town Wichita theater owner Bill Warren and his partners. Citizen opinion in Wichita seems to be mostly outrage at this giveaway, and rightly so. See Wichita Old Town Warren Theater Public Hearing Remarks and Wichita and the Old Town Warren Theater Loan.
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Kansas Giveaways to Wealthy Homeowners
A Wichita Eagle news story (Help with historic houses, July 4, 2008) describes two apparently wealthy College Hill homeowners who plan to benefit from Kansas tax credits. These credits are given to people who own homes that have a historic designation. If you own such a historic house and plan to, for example, replace the…
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In Wichita, is Economic Development Proven Public Policy?
In a statement read by Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer and released on the city’s website at Mayor Brewer Warren Theatre [sic] Statement, the mayor states “Economic development is proven public policy.” The word “proven” was used several other times in the statement. (I don’t know who wrote the title to the statement, but it combines…