From last night’s Andrew Puzder event on how jobs are created. The payroll comments are clipped in the first video. The full talk begins around the 8:20 mark in the second video
Watch Live Tonight — Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why the Government Doesn’t Understand It
Click below for live video of the Show-Me Institute’s Speaker Series on Economic Policy, which will begin at 6:00 p.m. CDT. Tonight’s speaker at this Saint Louis University event is Andrew Puzder, the CEO of Hardee’s. Puzder’s speech, “Job Creation: How It Works and Why the Government Doesn’t Understand It,” will focus on how to achieve genuine economic growth and wealth creation.
No Mas
No mas. No more. Boxing fans will remember that famous line that a thoroughly frustrated and perplexed Roberto Duran uttered as he quit in his fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. The legendary pugilist with self-proclaimed “hands of stone” realized that it was time to pack it in. Duran wasn’t out of time, but he was out of hope.
So it is now with the Missouri Legislature. Lawmakers have struggled in vain since Sept. 6 to accomplish much in their special session. But the House can’t agree with the Senate on hardly anything, especially sunset provisions for key tax credits. As the finger-pointing of blame escalates, it’s time for legislators to admit that, just like Duran, they’re out of hope. They need to officially call a halt to the special session.
The bad news is that they haven’t fixed the state’s sizeable tax credits problem. The good news is that it appears they won’t pass Aerotropolis, the so-called China Hub proposal that was a bad deal for taxpayers from the get-go. Good because it means Missouri taxpayers apparently won’t be stuck with hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax credits. And to those lawmakers (and public officials) who continue to say “We’ve got to do something” to prime the economic pump in Missouri: There is a better way. Stop handing out tax credits and start lowering the tax burden for all companies and individuals.
Something to think about for the next legislative session.
Show-Me Your Android: SMI Smartphone App Now Live
It’s my pleasure to announce that the Show-Me Institute now has an Android App! Click here or the screenshots below to download it. Now you can stay up-to-date on Missouri free-market issues wherever you are: Just click the icon, and away you go. Feature requests are very much welcome.
The Importance of Digital Learning
It’s no secret that the cost of public education has ballooned, with little to show for it. During the past four decades, education spending has more than doubled, even after accounting for inflation. And yet, student achievement has not improved.
Obviously, no single solution can fix the large problem of education in the United States. But, a general strategy that we can use to improve education is to allow more innovation in the classroom so that we can find better ways to help students learn.
This summer, we released Caitlin Hartsell’s paper on virtual forms of education that are available to public school students, one type of classroom innovation. Digital learning can describe a variety of learning environments, including a student taking a class remotely, or a student working through exercises on a computer with assistance from the classroom teacher.
Hartsell pointed out that digital learning in Missouri is not rare — as a state, we’ve had some forms of digital learning for more than a decade. Rural schools, for example, share courses via interactive television as a way to offer courses (like foreign language and upper level math courses) they otherwise might not be able to offer students.
But there’s much more that could be improved. According to Digital Learning Now’s report card for Missouri, state law does not stipulate that student achievement data be used to evaluate the quality of individual online courses, nor does state law require that failing individual course providers be closed.
If you have been following calls to close failing charter schools here in St. Louis, the lack of such requirements certainly seems troubling.
Somehow, it seems appropriate that the announcement of Digital Learning Day, a national campaign to highlight innovative and successful uses of digital technology in public education, came during the same week that the new iPhone update was announced. We are increasingly using technology to improve our lives. It makes sense that we should extend the use of technology to the classroom.
Digital Learning Day is Feb. 1, 2012. Read more about that effort here. And, of course, stay tuned to the blog. We will continue to update you with more news about education policy.
A Public Request of Urban Planning Firms in Missouri
I have a request of the urban planning firms in Missouri. I would like to see examples where cities, counties, etc., hired a planning firm to determine the appropriateness of a blighting, conservation, etc., declaration for the purpose of TIF (Tax Increment Financing) or other types of abatements / incentives, and were told “no, they are not applicable here” by the urban planning firm. Are there any such examples, anywhere in Missouri, where planning firms that governments hired gave a negative answer to these types of questions? And I mean a completely negative answer, not a “you can’t do this, but you can do this” answer.
If anyone with a planning firm can send me any such examples, I would appreciate it. You can send them directly to me ([email protected]) or post them in the comments. My guess is that a totally negative answer has never happened in Missouri, at least in the past 20 years. I won’t be totally surprised if it has happened on a very few occasions, and I’d love to be proven wrong by finding a number of examples where it has occurred.
Speakers Series on Economic Policy: Hardee’s CEO Talks Jobs!
Andrew Puzder pulled the famous fast-food chain back from the brink of bankruptcy, so he knows something about creating jobs in a tough economic environment. Puzder, the CEO of CKE, will join the Show-Me Institute, the Saint Louis University John Cook School of Business, and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation on Tuesday night at the John Cook School of Business to talk about his new book, “Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why the Government Doesn’t Understand It.”
You’ll want to hear what he has to say. Reservations are required, so be sure to RSVP for the St. Louis event here.
Show-Me Institute Seeks Spring Interns
SAINT LOUIS – The Show-Me Institute announced its spring internship program today.
Interns at the Show-Me Institute Internship are involved in virtually all aspects of the institute’s operations, working closely with senior staff on a wide variety of projects. Show-Me Institute interns develop an in-depth understanding of how a think tank works, including editing and publishing, event planning, and occasional travel around the state.
Recent interns have also had articles published in newspapers throughout the state, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Springfield News-Leader, the Kansas City Daily Record, the St. Louis American, and the St. Louis Business Journal.
The spring internship runs from January through May, and will be held at the institute’s offices in downtown Clayton. Interns receive a modest stipend.
Applications are . The application deadline is December 2.
Tax Credit Sunsets: A Step Toward Reform
Over the last few months, we have worked hard to make the following point crystal clear: Tax credits that are narrowly tailored to benefit a powerful elite or fail to produce the return promised to taxpayers should be opposed when proposed, and mitigated or eliminated if enacted. The Aerotropolis tax credit was initially introduced as a nearly half-billion dollar behemoth. Today, the proposed tax credit program stands at $60 million, with the most problematic portion — the real estate credits — removed. The remaining $60 million poses concerns, as well, and legislators should take a hard look at whether the credit is going to be taxpayer money well-spent.
But there are other parts of the bill that includes Aerotropolis that deserve attention. Although the legislation is peppered with a grab-bag of new incentive programs of questionable value to the state, there is a fair chance that two enormous tax credits — the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and Historic Tax Credit (HTC) — may be phased out if the so-called “jobs bill” is going make it to the governor’s desk (emphasis mine).
Gov. Jay Nixon called the Legislature into special session on Sept. 6 to overhaul the state’s tax credits, which cost the general revenue fund more than $540 million a year. Nixon wanted legislators to scale back some programs while adding a few new ones, such as a tax break to spur development of a hub in St. Louis for freight flown between the Midwest and China.
But an agreement forged last summer by House and Senate Republican leaders fell apart, leaving the two chambers split over how much to cut and whether to set expiration dates or ‘sunsets” for programs that fund historic preservation and low-income housing development.
Senators remain committed to passage of seven-year sunset clauses, Mayer said Tuesday. An alternative review process proposed by Rep. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, would not corral the programs’ growing costs, Mayer said.
The proposed “alternative review process” is underwhelming to say the least, and as a solitary legislative move, would force no substantive action on Missouri’s burgeoning tax credit system until at least 2016, if ever. The heart of the problem is that while the presumption in the House is that the tax credit system should exist largely (and for all intents and purposes, indefinitely) in its current form, in fact, many tax credits need to be extinguished, most sooner rather than later, and all need to be seriously investigated as to whether they’re achieving their objectives.
This is where the sunsets play a role. Sunset provisions like the one proposed turn the old tax credit presumption on its head, phasing out programs like LIHTC and HTC — which, in the state’s own analysis, do not even remotely pay for themselves — but nonetheless giving the legislature an opportunity to reduce and reform the programs in the interim. On an ideological spectrum, that is the conservative position: responsibly reducing the size and scope of government.
LIHTC and HTC combined have carved out billions of dollars from the state budget over the last decade, with disappointing economic results. If Missouri’s legislature can’t responsibly reform these two programs within a seven-year window, there’s no reason to believe the legislature will ever reform the programs.
