Artists Are All Loser Slackers, Says Lying Media Outlet

I avoid reading the thin drool offered on the PJMedia website but I happened to read the opinion piece recently offered by a failed artist now church employee who demands the National Endowment for the Arts be totally eliminated 

The writer trots out withered, ancient and fake narratives which ignore the reality of what the NEA does and how it does it. The writer wails that crazy commie leftist artists suck up tax dollars to insult you with lousy arty stuff no one needs 'cause art ain't food; another false claim is that all art should be regulated by a free market and therefore insure only good art that everyone likes will survive and crappy art will die; and finally that "all Americans' don't have any creative notions so no creative notion should be supported.

The facts are enormously and utterly at odds with such drivel.

"The NEA’s 2017 budget is $149.8 million. In a nation of 319 million people that amount doesn’t allow the agency to subsidize much of anything. But the endowment has found ways to make the money work with outsized effectiveness and efficiency. It makes thousands of small grants to nonprofit organizations — on average 2,100 a year. Each grant requires the recipient to raise matching local funds — often at a ratio of two or three local dollars for each federal one. So the NEA mostly serves as a catalyst for local groups to raise private and state money to serve their own communities.

On its modest budget, NEA funding now reaches every state, every congressional district, and even most counties — rural and urban — in the United States. Grants fund programs in schools, libraries and military bases. Nearly half the grants go directly to state and regional arts organizations to expand grass-roots efforts. NEA grants never pay overhead or annual expenses. They only fund specific programs of artistic and educational excellence that reach the public."
--
"The arts in America wouldn’t be destroyed if the NEA ceased to exist. But music, dance, theater, literature and visual arts would become less widely available, especially in schools, rural areas and poorer communities. Access to culture should not be a function of family income. That is why citizens should remind their representatives in Washington that the NEA needs to be protected. Believe it or not, most members of Congress will be pleased to get these letters.

Public support for the arts and arts education is neither a partisan nor a divisive issue. Most Americans want to see the arts in their communities and their schools. Most members of Congress agree. So do most governors and state legislatures. A 2016 public opinion poll conducted by the advocacy group Americans for the Arts found that 55% were in favor of doubling the NEA’s budget (from 46 cents per person then to $1 per person)."

Truth - eliminating the tiny amount of the NEA budget resolves no issue and addresses no problem. So why push for it?

I find it fascinating the writer from PJM is employed by a religious organization, which is exempt from paying taxes - if the writer were truly concerned about fair tax policies, shouldn't he argue that religious organizations should be taxed? So it isn't a tax issue or an economics issue - it's a cultural control issue. It also perpetuates hateful, demeaning, false and ignorant views about anyone who works in the arts - as the article's writer asks, "why should my tax dollars pay for your slacker son to be in a play when if had any talent he would not need any support to reach the heights of success and fame and wealth'.

A few million dollars supporting tens of thousands of arts programs is bad. Billions to subsidize oil companies or banking is good. Only art that is bought is good. The crap you make in your own community is crap, go get a real job, slacker.

The Republican party continues to show it opposes collaboration, open dialog, education, a free press, or anything which provides opportunities for the poor, for rural residents, for schools. Every argument about the arts they offer is debunked but they continue to lie and distort reality - the real problem, they say, is your sin of not being wealthy. Art is for the wealthy and talented - your creative contribution is a laughable pile of crap.

And, as usual, those ideas are held only by a small, angry, petty crowd of deplorable clucks who have a warped view of the world. They simply lust for power for it's own sake while claiming to be your Protectors. 

You Get A Quarter For A Tax Break, 1,000 Others Will Get 20 Grand

There were some eager press reports this week proclaiming that the state legislature had just voted to lower taxes in Tennessee. The truth of the matter is nothing to cheer about. R. Neal lays out the math:

"... to summarize, the 0.1% get a $20,000 tax break and everybody else gets a $3.50 tax break. How very Republican!"

Just watch - this legislature will send out re-election campaign shouts of "We Lowered Taxes!"

Meanwhile, expect more cuts to education, more invasion of your personal lives, zero accountability for campaign donors, etc etc. It's the Conservative state of Tennessee where the state works to conserve money and influence into the smallest number of hands.

No Debate On Morristown Sales Tax Referendum

City residents in Morristown have a sales tax increase referendum on the ballot for their vote on Tuesday, but there is pretty much zero information about the ballot. A county-wide vote was defeated earlier this year, despite much huffing and puffing to promote it in the local press. Most in the public just won't vote to increase taxes. All those temporary measure taxes, like for a wheel tax, voted for in county after county were really votes for a permanent tax. Voters learn quickly from such experiences.

For Tuesday - not even the city's web site has one word about the upcoming vote. The only listed event for Tuesday June 3rd is a city council meeting. Is the measure more likely to pass if fewer people vote? Until the vote is counted Tuesday, we won't know. It sure seems like a low turnout is being hoped for.

Blogger Linda Noe has reported on the mass mailed letters to "property owners" asking them to support the tax increase, an effort paid for by tax dollars. Has the city decided the less said about the sales tax increase the better?

Part of the push from City Hall is that their recent massive 40-cent property tax increase would be rolled back some 15 cents if this vote passes. But given the budget mess they have on their hands, how long before that 15 cents gets added back in again? Or 25 cents? Or more? The sales tax increase is permanent.

Ben Cunningham at Taxing Tennessee writes about the city's registering itself as a committee to promote the proposed increase:

"I wish I could find words to describe the arrogance of these Morristown officials."

I am not a city resident and will have no vote on Tuesday. However, I can and do vote by deciding where I go to spend money, as do so many others in the area. Knowing I could travel into the city limits to make a purchase at a higher price or travel about the same distance to Jefferson County and Jefferson City ... well, with everything costing more and more, I look for savings wherever I can. Some folks can't afford to pay for the extra cost of gas to travel outside the city for a small savings on sales tax, but I wonder how many non-city residents will decide to not make a purchase while in Morristown?

Whether or not the city needs an increase in sales taxes, needs to cut spending, needs to reconfigure their operations - all that is a topic for debate, certainly.

But I hear no debate at all.

State To Cut Sales Tax, Morristown Set To Raise It

This week the state government crafted a much-agreed to plan for a rollback on state sales tax on food from 6 percent to 5.5 percent. The state Democrats pushed for the rollback, which is likely to be approved by the state and will go into effect on Jan. 1 2008.

The plan only affects food sales tax and customers will get a - somewhat small - break.

Except in Morristown.

Poised to enact a property tax rate increase of 40% the city also plans to provide a referendum (is it one of those city games of a non-binding votes the city has held before if the public rejects it?) which would increase the local option on sales tax on all items by .25 percent and decrease slightly the massive property tax rise. If approved, grocery taxes would be cheaper outside Morristown city limits.

In addition to the sales tax increase and the historically high new property tax on residents and businesses, the city also wants to tax residents and business under a new 'storm water assessment", a new tax based on 'impermeable square footage' for property owners and they hope to net some $400,000 annually. That's about the same amount of they city's 'book-keeping error' from last year.

The first Morristown council meeting to vote on these proposals, June 14 at 4 p.m., is also the same meeting where the public will be allowed for the first time to comment on these widespread tax increases. According to city officials, all these tax increases will only allow the city to operate for 3 years before another increase is needed.

UPDATE: As I mentioned on this topic before, I doubt there will be much if any dissent on the increase, since comparatively the rate in Mo'town is pretty low anyway. I do wonder just how much taxes and the dubious management of city finances must increase before the public does decide to get involved in the issue.

Corporate Freebies - A Southern Folly

"In 2006 the Korean car maker Kia decided to build a $1.2 billion plant in West Point, Georgia. To land the project, the state offered a $420 million incentive package that included free land (bought from the previous owners at about 2.5 times the market value), tax-funded employee training, and a new $30 million Interstate interchange. Altogether, the subsidies amounted to roughly $168,000 for each of the 2,500 jobs at the plant.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, says it was the incentives that brought those Kia jobs to town. Harvey Newman, an economist at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Public Policy, isn’t convinced. “It was clear they would pick a Southern state because of labor costs,” he notes. “Alabama had a trained force of autoworkers, so Kia located on the Georgia-Alabama border.” In other words, Georgia taxpayers are paying Kia hundreds of millions of dollars to hire Alabama workers."

That's just one comment from an eye-opening assessment in Reason Magazine that tax breaks and other types of corporate welfare seldom provide many promised results.

While it may make some sense to offer assistance to use tax money to accelerate development of roads, water or energy lines, and other similar projects, the unspoken freebies to woo wealthy companies usually include free land and years of no taxation. That's usually called "abatement", which is easier on the ears of taxpayers than the word's real meaning - free ride on taxes.

As the story notes, the real decisive factor for the majority of businesses has little to do with these massive payouts - they are concerned with other issues, like work force training, access to suppliers, and prevailing wages.

The South is leading the way for tax-funded subsidies, and companies are paying attention to the trend. It allows them to go to other states (perhaps the ones they prefer from the beginning) and see what kind of bidding war can ensue.

Newman has more on the topic, too -

"There’s almost never any evidence that [taxpayer-funded incentives] work” at producing benefits for the general public, says Newman, the Georgia State economist. “We know that incentives aren’t usually the deciding factor. So the jobs would be created in any event. And incentives are basically unfair, favoring some companies over others."

I've mentioned this topic before, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), noting the true cost to communities which tend to offer any and every tax deal imaginable. The real costs are soon dropped on residents in the form of higher taxation:

"But what is missing here is that the cost of developing private business has some public costs. Road and sewers and schools are public costs that come from growth.” Unless spending is cut —and if a TIF really does generate economic growth, spending is likely to rise, as the local population grows —the burden of paying for these services will be shifted to other taxpayers. Adding insult to injury, those taxpayers may include small businesses facing competition from well-connected chains that enjoy TIF-related tax breaks. In effect, a TIF subsidizes big businesses at the expense of less politically influential competitors and ordinary citizens."

What are the real costs of Southern 'hospitality'?