Happy Elite 8 Sunday! I’m sitting here waiting for my Sooners to take on powerful UNC with my fingers crossed! My bracket was “busted” with the Memphis loss, but an OU win would help to ease my pain!
Now on to a more important topic! This morning’s economic news is similar to past weeks, rising deficits and the hope that the economy has hit bottom and is on the rise. My home state, Arizona, is fighting over the same thing that most states are: how do you trim the budget without raising taxes and still be able to compete for economic development?
Unfortunately, this state’s posture appears to be to slash everything, including important economic development marketing functions and incentives that could attract jobs, plus possibly raise taxes. Are we “throwing the baby out with the bath water?” It appears so to me, especially when neighboring California has recently slashed its budget to the bone and raised taxes and fees—an invitation to business to, “say goodbye, Golden State.”
Now is the perfect opportunity to show outside businesses that Arizona is still tax friendly and has some attractive new incentives, including a nice solar tax credit program available to help them to invest here. Forward thinking here would be to set some new carefully targeted marketing dollars aside, pass the new solar credit incentive, and not raise taxes! The results would be the capturing of new locations and related tax revenues from California and elsewhere, some big results that will boost our economy for a relatively small investment! Boomer Sooner! Deane