The Events Center and our schools

By opting for expediency and near-term savings benefits, we will be doing the city of Sioux Falls grave near- and long-term economic disservice (and in the process compounding a past failure of placement with the Convention Center) if we fail to build the proposed new Events Center in the heart of Sioux Falls. In its recent decision that Councilor Jim Entenman’s ownership of property near the Arena posed no conflict of interest in the matter, the Board of Ethics unanimously concluded that land values would not rise with a new events center at the Arena site.

AECOM reached similar conclusions in its economic and development impact analysis of the two sites - even in the near-term, projecting $51.1 million in new near-term investment attracted by a downtown location versus $6.7 million at the Arena site (“Sioux Falls Events Center Economic and Development Impact Analysis,” p. 8). The AECOM report also concludes that

“Currently, there is an estimated $500 million in planned or proposed downtown projects. Based on discussions with local developers, the proposed Events Center would likely provide the needed impetus to kick start many of these projects. Locating the Events Center at the Downtown site could create a level of potential spin‐off development not likely achievable at the Arena/Convention Center site.” (p. 37 – emphasis mine)

That’s FIVE TIMES the estimated cost of building the Events Center injected directly into the Sioux Falls economy in property development alone.

The property tax implications go far beyond mere municipal receipts; our city has the opportunity to reap benefits in terms of our greatest asset: our children and the quality of their education. The AECOM report continues on page 8:

“[W]e estimate $30,000 in new city property tax revenues from spin‐off development at the Arena/Convention Center site in 2016, and $228,000 from the Downtown site. This does not include other tax impacts that would be captured by other public bodies, such as the local school district, the county, and the state.” ‐AECOM “Sioux Falls Events Center Economic and Development Impact Analysis,” p. 8 [emphasis mine]

In 2010, the allotments from each SD property tax dollar were split five ways: 27.35% for counties, 1.51% for townships, 1.89% for special assessments, 13.4% for municipalities, and 55.85% for schools. (SD Dept of Revenue 2010 Annual Report, p. 19) From AECOM’s projected municipal revenues, we can extrapolate the Sioux Falls School District’s property tax share. Considering only new near-term investment numbers ($51.1 million downtown / $6.7 million Arena site), $950,000 – almost a million dollars – will be generated annually for Sioux Falls schools from a downtown events center versus $125,000 from an Arena placement.

The difference grows even more stark when we consider the $500 million in already-proposed development that a downtown Events Center would kickstart. The city of Sioux Falls loses an additional $2.2 million in property tax revenues every year those developments languish, but an even greater impact is had on Sioux Falls schools. The mayor and AECOM are right when they say that building the events center downtown will “only” speed up development in the downtown area, but we need to be clear what “only” really means: Every year that downtown development is delayed, Sioux Falls schools are missing out on an estimated $10.2 million of additional funding.

So *that's* how the GOP plans to reduce the deficit

By exempting their deficit-exploding policy proposals from budgetary consideration. Can't pay for that massive tax "relief" for the rich? Just say "that doesn't count toward the deficit":

Republicans' deficit reduction platform, which may have helped catapult them into the majority, is about to run headlong into a hard reality: Many of their key policy goals will increase the deficit dramatically.

To get around this fact, they've included measures in their new rules package to exempt some of their biggest legislative priorities from deficit consideration. Among the exceptions, which the House is likely to consider in the 112th Congress, are the health care repeal bill (scheduled for a vote a week from Wednesday), the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, extending the estate tax, and more.

For links and more hard information, check out the full Talking Points Memo story here and Jason Linkins' HuffPo story here.

Speaking of our "free" market and pure capitalism

I loves me some thinking man - oh, Gary Hart, why couldn't you have kept it in your pants? You would have made a good president, but you're probably a better man today for not having been. From his blog at mattersofprinciple.com (and cross-posted at Huff Po here):

It is quite possible that the greatest human challenge in this century will be how or whether we humans can fairly share what belongs to all. Aristotle stated the issue: "... what is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest." Garrett Hardin summarized this issue for the present age: "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons."

Our economic system is built on the proposition that markets allocate resources best. But what is true of private resources may not also be true of public resources, those we hold in common. The conservative response to this is, of course, privatize all public resources. 20 years ago this was accomplished in Russia, and about a dozen and a half oligarchs ended up with most of the public assets.In the industrial age we let private interests allocate our most precious public resources, our air and water, and we see how that worked out. In this century we are now competing with the rest of the world as to how and whether together we can prevent carbonization of our very climate from fundamentally altering life on earth.

Every man for himself would be a (more or less) rational approach to life... if men and women were merely economic creatures. But there is also such a thing as moral man. And it is moral man (and woman) who confront the necessity of protecting the commons and preventing a tragedy brought on by greed.

We will either learn to live together and protect and preserve our common resources or our children and future generations -- with the exception of the very wealthy -- will have to learn how to perish separately. And the prospect of a world of all against all may not even prove to be that attractive to the children of the very wealthy.

Brain and brain, what is brain!

Finally, a scientific explanation for conservatism.

"Researchers from the University College London scanned the brains of group of research participants and a handful of politicians. The results? Those who identified as politically conservative had significantly larger amygdalas, the almond shaped part of the brain in charge of “primitive” emotion like fear and anxiety. Not only that but their anterior cingulate—the part of the brain thought to be responsible for impulses like courage and optimism—was found to be smaller in conservatives as well."