Monday, December 26, 2011
Arkansas Politics / Taxes Get ready for the highway tax campaign
Posted by Max Brantley on Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 6:04 AM
Stephens Media takes an advance look at the 2012 campaign to raise the state sales tax a half-cent to pay for an almost $2 billion four-lane road construction program.
The Municipal League remains non-commital, though the proposal includes a split for cities and counties on a portion of the money. The Municipal League, however, has already thrown in on the drive to raise the severance tax on natural gas. It provides for city and county road funding. It also doesn't add to the sales tax burden, local governments' chief source of revenue.
My own particular interest, comes from a quote from Craig Douglass, who's chief money launderer — er, excuse me, campaign spokesman for Move Arkansas Forward — in the recently concluded highway bond campaign and the coming four-lane program:
Douglass said the key in promoting the half-cent sales tax will be educating various regions of the state on what kind of highway projects they could expect, and reminding them how much money cities and counties would receive.“Rather than a statewide effort, I would suspect that the (Move Arkansas Forward) committee will regionalize the campaign based on projects,” he said. “They also will need to stress that it is a temporary sales tax for specific projects.“
Suppose you give money to this campaign and would like to know exactly how Douglass spent this money — your money? Forget about it. Go to the Ethics Commission website to see how Move Arkansas Forward spends its money through Douglass and you'll find little more than checks written to Craig Douglass, who spends the money who knows how (a half-million so far). Now — thanks to a recent Ethics Commission ruling — it has legal protection for not disclosing specific expense payments, despite legislative language that strongly encourages more openness. (The December report, for example, shows $26,000 paid to Douglass for "broadcast production, printing and media buys" and also on-line ads and professional services. See any of that broadcast and media work?) Oh, wait. There also were some checks written in recent months to the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce for "administrative expenses" and for fees to another familiar name, the Markham Group, straw man — excuse me, campaign consultant — for the Little Rock sales tax campaign. The secretive spending of the ghost sales tax campaign of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce is now the fools' gold ethical standard for campaign secrecy until, we can hope, the law on disclosure of ballot issue spending is changed in 2013. I explain this affront to public accountability of campaign spending in this week's column.
I call again on Craig Douglass and Randy Zook of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce to voluntarily disclose specific campaign expenditures in the same manner political candidates are required to disclose expenses. You guys do believe in transparent government, don't you?
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May 14, 2012I've been at work rounding up internal communications from the varioustaxpayer-supported agencies that have been working to deliver, at significant public expense, a rental office building to entice tech businesses to Little Rock. /more/
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May 11, 2012I mentioned the other day that a response had been slow coming from the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce on an FOI request I made for information relative to the Little Rock Technology Park Authority. /more/
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- More »
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
2nd posting. What happened to first?
Is Arkansas unique in this type of funding? Game and Fish are especially guilty. What happened to FOA?
like
dislikeHow about eliminating the sales tax exemption on gasoline & diesel fuels instead of raising the tax rate on everything else?
The spiel that 50,000 jobs is hog wash. I intend to vote "nay" because of my geographical bias.
And the reasons I need to pay for 4 lane roads with a regressive tax is? Just wonderin'
>>The spiel that 50,000 jobs is hog wash.<<
Apparently Cato hasn't learned the new free-market, pipeline math.
If a job lasts two years then it's counted as two jobs.
Three or four years then it's three or four jobs.
Got it? I'm not kidding. Making a year of employment the best a worker can shoot for is what? Stimulating? Promising?
You know, Max, these secret public policy campaigns could be the most efficient means of money laundering, all perfectly legal of course.
I think my new voting policy is going to be if the funding is a secret, they won't get my vote. Open your books and only then will I will consider voting for your proposal.
Craig Douglass used to wait tables and he wasn't very good at that job either.
If Douglass wasn't whoring for the monied interests, how else would he keep from joining the homeless? He has no other job skills.
And wouldn't it be interesting if the law denied the special interest poodles who are "investing" their big money in Move Arkansas Backward and other public policy campaigns any right to look at the books and see how their money was being spent. Why, their boy Craig could go right out and buy himself a new Mercedes, take a vacation in Aruba, and enjoy those $100 meals every night right here in Big Rock with those special interest funds. Now wouldn't that be sweet!
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