www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ib_29.htm#.VN5ynk...KJn8t
https://chumly.com/n/2a41039
Friday, February 13, 2015
Did Ray Scott commit apostasy against rural Colorado? Hardly
By Josh Penry, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Friday, February 13, 2015
State Sen. Ray Scott got the all-in, full-frontal, spare-no-expense, take-that-and-that-and-that woodshed treatment by the Daily Sentinel editorial board last week, all for casting a vote to kill a bill authored by a Vail Democrat that would have created $2 million in aid to help rural communities deal with layoffs.
The Sentinel’s editorial page, which has tremendous influence among state policymakers and politicos, didn’t mince words.
"We had high hopes that Scott’s ascendency as a lawmaker would include laying aside petty politics and embracing opportunities to work in bipartisan fashion for the good of the Western Slope. A month into this year’s session, Scott has proven that he has his own agenda.
"Meanwhile Scott forfeits any future claim to being a champion of rural communities unless he comes up with a better alternative to Donovan’s plan.”
A chorus of local Democrats (when I say chorus, think more small garage band and less Easter cantata) dutifully piled on poor Senator Ray-Ray.
If only the Daily Sentinel had endorsed the perennial also-ran who challenged Senator Scott last fall, and if only the voters of Mesa County had followed suit, Democrats screamed, this important bill wouldn’t have died and western Colorado would be brimming with signs of recovery.
Ah, the editorial woodshed and Democrats carping — I remember those days. I don’t actually know the Senator particularly well, but I bet the whole episode was a serious headache.
Let’s get past the public relations scrum and look at the bill in question. In short, the legislation created a $2-$3 million fund in the Department of Local Affairs, whose executive director was given broad authority to dole it out — as incentives for companies or local governments to do job training, to incent new capital investments, or to improve rural infrastructure. These categories were permissive. Essentially the head of local affairs could spend the loot however he chose.
So was the bill good public policy? Debatable, for sure.
First off, let’s be serious. A $2 million program targeted to an areas as expansive as, essentially, all of rural Colorado amounts to the sum of Jack plus Squat.
If the Department of Local Affairs decided to put every penny of the program into infrastructure enhancements, the senator from Vail would have succeeded in funding the equivalent of a turn-lane on Horizon Drive, or a new mechanical railroad arm where Highway 50 turns into Main Street Delta.
More precisely, if the head of Local Affairs decided to simply give away all the cash in the program to the residents of Mesa, Garfield, Montrose and Delta Counties, each resident would have been entitled to $7.32, or the cost of a biscuit supreme at Starvin Arvin’s (side of hash browns not included).
You know the infamous fence around Walker Field, er, Grand Junction Regional Airport? It cost $4.2 million dollars, more than the entirety of the recovery program times two. I bet the FBI has spent more than $2 million investigating that fence, or whatever it is they’ve been investigating for like a decade.
All of which makes the point, the bill, and its grand plan to rescue rural Colorado with the equivalent of a drop in the bucket, has an unmistakable air of tokenism.
That said, on its face, nothing in the bill is harmful, although some of my most conservative and liberal friends would call it corporate welfare. I personally believe prudently constructed incentive programs are a great way to prime the pump of economic renewal, but many conservatives (and a certain president of the United States) have long railed against taxpayer transfers to corporations, either in the form of direct payments or tax loopholes. They say that it is wrong for a handful of lucky companies to benefit from special handouts funded by the many. Jim Speher and Jay Seaton had roughly this very argument on these pages last week.
So did Ray Scott commit an act of unforgiveable apostasy against rural Colorado? No, though he should heed calls for bipartisanship.
Sen. Scott should quickly introduce legislation calling for the expansion of coal mines in the North Fork Valley, the rushed permitting of drilling on the Roan Plateau, a change in formula that ensures oil and gas tax revenues stay 100 percent in the communities where they are produced, and for that matter, the exemption of small businesses in rural Colorado from the employer mandate in Obamacare.
All of these things would actually help the distressed economies of rural Colorado, and I just know the Democratic senator from Vail will eschew partisanship and eagerly support every one.
Josh Penry is a government-relations executive living in Centennial. He is a former minority leader in the Colorado Senate and a graduate of Grand Junction High School and Mesa State College.
https://chumly.com/n/2a4043d
Friday, February 13, 2015
State Sen. Ray Scott got the all-in, full-frontal, spare-no-expense, take-that-and-that-and-that woodshed treatment by the Daily Sentinel editorial board last week, all for casting a vote to kill a bill authored by a Vail Democrat that would have created $2 million in aid to help rural communities deal with layoffs.
The Sentinel’s editorial page, which has tremendous influence among state policymakers and politicos, didn’t mince words.
"We had high hopes that Scott’s ascendency as a lawmaker would include laying aside petty politics and embracing opportunities to work in bipartisan fashion for the good of the Western Slope. A month into this year’s session, Scott has proven that he has his own agenda.
"Meanwhile Scott forfeits any future claim to being a champion of rural communities unless he comes up with a better alternative to Donovan’s plan.”
A chorus of local Democrats (when I say chorus, think more small garage band and less Easter cantata) dutifully piled on poor Senator Ray-Ray.
If only the Daily Sentinel had endorsed the perennial also-ran who challenged Senator Scott last fall, and if only the voters of Mesa County had followed suit, Democrats screamed, this important bill wouldn’t have died and western Colorado would be brimming with signs of recovery.
Ah, the editorial woodshed and Democrats carping — I remember those days. I don’t actually know the Senator particularly well, but I bet the whole episode was a serious headache.
Let’s get past the public relations scrum and look at the bill in question. In short, the legislation created a $2-$3 million fund in the Department of Local Affairs, whose executive director was given broad authority to dole it out — as incentives for companies or local governments to do job training, to incent new capital investments, or to improve rural infrastructure. These categories were permissive. Essentially the head of local affairs could spend the loot however he chose.
So was the bill good public policy? Debatable, for sure.
First off, let’s be serious. A $2 million program targeted to an areas as expansive as, essentially, all of rural Colorado amounts to the sum of Jack plus Squat.
If the Department of Local Affairs decided to put every penny of the program into infrastructure enhancements, the senator from Vail would have succeeded in funding the equivalent of a turn-lane on Horizon Drive, or a new mechanical railroad arm where Highway 50 turns into Main Street Delta.
More precisely, if the head of Local Affairs decided to simply give away all the cash in the program to the residents of Mesa, Garfield, Montrose and Delta Counties, each resident would have been entitled to $7.32, or the cost of a biscuit supreme at Starvin Arvin’s (side of hash browns not included).
You know the infamous fence around Walker Field, er, Grand Junction Regional Airport? It cost $4.2 million dollars, more than the entirety of the recovery program times two. I bet the FBI has spent more than $2 million investigating that fence, or whatever it is they’ve been investigating for like a decade.
All of which makes the point, the bill, and its grand plan to rescue rural Colorado with the equivalent of a drop in the bucket, has an unmistakable air of tokenism.
That said, on its face, nothing in the bill is harmful, although some of my most conservative and liberal friends would call it corporate welfare. I personally believe prudently constructed incentive programs are a great way to prime the pump of economic renewal, but many conservatives (and a certain president of the United States) have long railed against taxpayer transfers to corporations, either in the form of direct payments or tax loopholes. They say that it is wrong for a handful of lucky companies to benefit from special handouts funded by the many. Jim Speher and Jay Seaton had roughly this very argument on these pages last week.
So did Ray Scott commit an act of unforgiveable apostasy against rural Colorado? No, though he should heed calls for bipartisanship.
Sen. Scott should quickly introduce legislation calling for the expansion of coal mines in the North Fork Valley, the rushed permitting of drilling on the Roan Plateau, a change in formula that ensures oil and gas tax revenues stay 100 percent in the communities where they are produced, and for that matter, the exemption of small businesses in rural Colorado from the employer mandate in Obamacare.
All of these things would actually help the distressed economies of rural Colorado, and I just know the Democratic senator from Vail will eschew partisanship and eagerly support every one.
Josh Penry is a government-relations executive living in Centennial. He is a former minority leader in the Colorado Senate and a graduate of Grand Junction High School and Mesa State College.
https://chumly.com/n/2a4043d
Thursday, February 12, 2015
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