Whitewater’s Community Development Authority twice touted a part of the Trump tax bill as good for Whitewater. (See press release 1, press release 2.) Continuing a general look at the bill, it’s clear that it’s bad public policy, producing the wrong incentives. By its very nature, a tax bill is a government policy, favoring some allocations…
Taxes/Taxation
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Economics, Economy, Politics, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
The Trump Tax Bill: That’s Not Reform
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority represents a specific part of the Trump tax bill as beneficial to this city. (See press release 1, press release 2.) For today, looking at the bill generally, it’s bad for America: it’s a sham reform instead of a beneficial restructuring, and it makes this country’s outlook worse. Benjamin H. Harris and Adam…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Politics, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
More About that Trump Tax Bill
by JOHN ADAMS •
In the spring, Whitewater saw two Community Development Authority press releases touting a specific part of the Trump tax bill. (See press release 1, press release 2.) In response, this website replied (1) with a link to a Congressional Budget Office study implying that, overall, the Trump bill will boost incomes for foreign investors but not…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Gov. Walker, Marketing, Politics, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
About that Trump Tax Plan
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater, by press release (twice), one can read about the supposed benefits of the Trump tax plan. The Whitewater Community Development Authority’s executive director, Dave Carlson, was quick to push a portion of the plan as good for Whitewater. In doing so, he conceded what anyone observing Whitewater with care and concern already knew:…
Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, State Capitalism, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way
‘Crony Capitalism and Social Engineering: The Case Against Tax-Increment Financing’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s residents may have heard, as I have, ignorant and false boasting about the benefits of tax incremental financing. It’s variously described as increment or incremental financing, but either way, it’s a plan to entice developers with taxpayer funds by segregating from the general fund, if any, the revenue generated from a development to pay…
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Open Government, Taxes/Taxation
City of Whitewater’s Proposed 2016 Budget
by JOHN ADAMS •
Embedded below readers will find the City of Whitewater’s proposed 2016 budget. An open and confident government would embed the budget on the city’s main webpage; an inquisitive and worthy press would embed (or at least link) to the budget file. For the city there’s still a long way to go; for the print press there’s…
Development, Economy, Government Spending, Marketing, Public Relations, Taxes/Taxation, WEDC
WEDC’s Development Gurus Fail Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
All Whitewater has heard Chancellor Telfer, City Manager Clapper, and CDA Chairman Knight tout money from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation as though it were manna from Heaven. We were supposed to see this money as they meant us to see it, as blessing and providence. Meanwhile, each time those officials flacked these public funds,…
Government Spending, Taxes/Taxation
On the Blackhawk Technical College Referendum
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Rock Netroots, Lou Kaye’s published a post with observations about Rock County’s politics, entitled, Community Quotes #3. (It’s in the syle of a similar Gazette feature, but thankfully without that newspaper’s ceaseless fronting of white-collar welfare.) On the Blackhawk Technical College referendum (four-million more annually, forever…), Kaye has three comments that sum it…
Government Spending, Local Government, Press, Taxes/Taxation
What Steve Jobs Understood About People That Local ‘Movers and Shakers’ Don’t
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s an easy – and false – pose to assume that people can’t understand a supposedly complicated project. There was some of this thinking in an editorial about which I commented yesterday, in the Gazette‘s contention that that “SWAG’s [Southern Wisconsin Agricultural Group’s] complex, though intriguing, always seemed grand and hard for average residents to…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
Creating Taxpayers as Government’s Goal
by JOHN ADAMS •
When seeking to persuade Milton, Wisconsin’s councilmembers to regulate food trucks, an incumbent merchant recently said that more competition might put him out of business, after which he would no longer be a taxpayer. That’s telling: the incumbent’s appeal to government – to a room full of politicians and municipal bureaucrats – is that they…
City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
What’s Whitewater’s Economy?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Like many others, I read the news each day, about our city, online and in print. When one reads about Whitewater, of its local government, one likely reads about one of two topics: (1) the city or public schools budgets, or (2) municipal development projects. They’re both important, sometimes very much so, but they’re only…
City, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
Proposed 2014 Whitewater City Budget and Accompanying Budget Memo
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Taxes/Taxation
What Tires and Ages a City?
by JOHN ADAMS •
In my last post, I wrote about a survey that identified Whitewater as an especially youthful town (mind you, by median age, and only from CNN Money’s limited selection of small towns). Well, what would the opposite be like: what would age a town, and drive it into decrepitude? The sarcastic answer, of course, is…
City, Development, Government Spending, Local Government, New Whitewater, Planning, Politics, Taxes/Taxation
A Review of Whitewater’s Economy is Like Peeling an Artichoke
by JOHN ADAMS •
Artichokes, of course, symbolize the idea of multi-layered things, of peeling back an exterior to discover an interior truth. Whitewater’s economy is like that – one needs to peel away layer upon layer of happy-talk headlines to address the truth of our present condition. (In a way, the only indubitable success those headlines assure is…