Jerry Brown’s Plan to Kill Community ‘Redevelopment’ Is Fiscally Sound, Morally Right and Probably Doomed
TIM CAVANAUGH, Senior Editor Reason Magazine
At what point does a public institution move beyond mere
self-interest or ineffectuality and become actively evil? Two
proposals in California Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2011-12 austerity budget
provide a useful comparison.
With his plan to ax the state’s system of “enterprise zones” and
related tax credits, Brown wants to do away with a program whose
history of failure can be charitably blamed on bad luck or
miscarried good intentions. But by trying to kill the state’s 425
redevelopment agencies (RDAs), the governor is taking on–and
robustly criticizing–a gang of thugs whose activities closely
resemble those of a criminal enterprise.
Brown has plenty of reason to cut both entities. The state faces
a $25 billion deficit during the next two years, and both programs
are enormous money losers. By eliminating enterprise zone tax
breaks (which include hiring credits, interest deductions, special
treatment for sales taxes paid, and a credit for employees who earn
wages within a given area), the governor expects to make an
additional $343 million available in the 2010-11 budget and $581
million in 2011-12. The savings to state and local governments from
deep-sixing redevelopment funding are expected to be even greater:
an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion during the same
period.
That’s the budget-hawk reason for eliminating these programs.
But the much more important reason, which Brown’s 2011-12 budget
summary explains in surprising detail, is that both are manifest
failures even on their own very forgiving terms.
Enterprise zones create few jobs and almost never increase
hiring for the poor local residents they are supposed to help. The
budget summary cites a 2005 legislative analyst’s finding that “EZs
have little if any impact on the creation of new economic activity
or employment.” In the kind of misallocation language you’d expect
to find in a classical economics textbook rather than a government
document, the summary also notes that the few increases in hiring
or business “are not generally a result of new activity, but,
instead, from the shift of activity into a zone that otherwise
would have occurred elsewhere.” This anemic shifting of value comes
at an enormous cost. A 2002 report from the W.E. Upjohn Institute
for Employment Research found that enterprise zones cost state and
local governments a whopping $60,000 for every job created in a
given zone.
So, for those of us who really DO want to see California begin to right itself, can there PLEASE be some bipartisan support to what Brown is attempting to do? Screaming impossible slogans from the sidelines may be entertaining and diverting, but intellectually bankrupt. As far as I am concerned, if we can eliminate RDA AND enterprise zones in Brown’s first year that is reason enough to vote to extend tax cuts, maybe not 5 years, but reasonably for a period of time, so we hang on to accountability. Lets give the governor the victory he needs to go forward.
Well I think it’s fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Yes, get what you want to if you want, ’cause you can get anything.
I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
so tell me, where do the children play?
Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can’t get off.
Oh, I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
so tell me, where do the children play?
Well you’ve cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
’til there’s no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?
I know we’ve come a long way,
We’re changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?
—CAT STEVENS
“There are many reasons for the failure of redevelopment. Maybe the most important factor is the tendency of public-private partnerships to attract the worst elements of society: union goons, neighborhood activists, reverends, public-trough developers, political appointees, city planners, and so on.”
Enough said.
Even those of us who are not Republicans appreciate the importance of having some sort of checks and balances.
Single party rule does not lend itself to a true Democracy in any Country.
But now the REPUBLICANS are going against their own stated principles and refusing to vote to abolish CRA’s – with the exception of one lone Republican member – Chris Norby.
It is in the best interests of all Californians that Redevelopment be completely abolished.
Angelenos who have the largest Redevelopment agency in the State can see how wasteful this has been committing over $9.5 million to private law firms – using taxpayer monies to negate the wishes of the people.
Its a simple choice – Do you want you property tax dollars to pay for overhead, to give $52 million to a billionaire for a parking lot for his private museum, to spend $100 million on Hollywood and Highland which cost $650 million in 2001, with the largest tax write down and then sold to CIM Group for $200 million?
This waste of precious dollars is not from money grown on trees. There is no free lunch. All increases in property valuations during the real estate speculative boom was seized by CRAs in Redevelopment project areas and wasted on Special Interests including wealthy developers benefit from it. Even the “non-profits” are financial beneficiaries. – Trickle down economics at its very worst
Who loses? The local communities, the working class and middle class taxpayers, small businesses, children, and families.
This money would have gone to education, public health and safety and help offset deficits.
Democrats just want to keep raising taxes that will drive more jobs out of California, and Republicans have now become their “bosom buddies” adding to deficits (Redevelopment issues bonds (debt) without voter approval), supporting another series of corporate bailouts (just look at 1601 N Vine), and Eminent Domain for private projects (not public use) – see “Kelo Eminent Domain.”
Good guy(Dems)…Bad guy(Repubs) tactics:
CRA vs. CEQA….GO FIGURE $$$$$$$
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget-environment-20110316,0,4304826.story
“ALL GOVERNMENT-INDEED, EVERY HUMAN BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT, EVERY VIRTUE AND EVERY PRUDENT ACT-IS FOUNDED ON COMPROMISE AND BARTER.”
—Edmund Burke–Speech on Conciliation
After said and done, it’s the little guy who doesn’t get a piece of the pie….
Hey you guys!
Burke: This is so nuts. I mean, listen – listen to what you’re saying. It’s paranoid delusion. How – It’s really sad. It’s pathetic.
Ripley: You know, Burke, I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them f***ing each other over for a goddamn percentage.
The Gov shot himself in the foot when he endorsed LaBonge who wants to expand the CRA to include every single parcel of land in the entire city.
Stephen Box, who did not a partisan campaign, is also a Democrat so Brown could have endorsed Box who was the biggest supporter of abolishing the CRA/LA of any candidate in the election.
When the politicos see Gov Brown oppose the #1 opponent of the CRA/LA, they have to interpret Brown’s anti-CRA stance as a mere ploy to gain support for a tax increase.
Soon Brown will come to our support to raise taxes and say he put up the “Good Fight” — Not true. Brown actively opposed the ant-CRA candidate. If Brown had endorsed Stephen Box and if he had won, then the GOP would not dare oppose the CRA’s abolition.
Support for any tax increase requires that Brown first succeed in abolishing the CRA’s.