These bills offer the opportunity to spend on behalf of all New
Orleanians, not just hyping the business opportunities of a small cabal of
tourism-related entities and political appointees in the hope some might
trickle down to the citizenry. Anybody can see improvements to infrastructure
across the city makes a bigger impact on more people than shoveling funds to
build and add on to a grand palace. The change prompted by the bills needs to
become law.
Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely. This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).
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1.5.17
Largesse should serve people, not special interests
The trick to the scam is staying with it. That
typifies the reaction of those associated and allied with the Ernest N. Morial
New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority to legislation that threatens some of
their taxpayer largesse.
Better known for its ownership and operation of
the Convention Center and Exhibition Hall, diversion of decades worth of taxes
collected by state and local governments have let this state-created entity bank
(at the end of 2015)
$268 million, with only $36 million committed to ongoing expansion projects.
Because of these tax receipts, it took in nearly $25 million more than it spent
in 2015, although its user fees, concession sales, and other minor charges
without the subsidy would have left it $32 million in the red.
HB 622 and
623 by Republican
state Rep. Stephanie
Hilferty would stop the excessive siphoning to this special interest. The bills
would move the proceeds of two citywide levies, a third of a three percent tax
on hotel lodging and half of a half-percent tax on food and drinks, to a new
special government set up to fund roads. In 2015, the pair, which were dedicated
to an expansion project that never materialized yet the Authority continued to
collect these, accounted for around $16 million in 2015.
This only makes sense. The citywide reach of these
taxes have little connection with the convention center; like somebody attending
a convention there really would stay on Read Blvd. and dine on Chef Menteur
Highway. The purpose for the existence of these became mooted years ago with cancellation
of the expansion. And the loss of revenue still would have left the Authority
$9 million the good for 2015 while it sits on over a quarter of a billion
dollars.
Meanwhile, New Orleans could use the money for
infrastructure. The bills create a cumbersome method for redistribution of
funds; the laws simply should abolish the taxes and permit New Orleans to pass
similar ones dedicated to roads. Regardless, the bills should move forward.
But the rhetoric
of the Authority and its fellow travelers condemning the bills makes it seem
they feel the world would end if these passed. “That kind of bill is very
nearsighted,” asserted Bob Johnson, the center’s general manager and soon to
retire, claiming “the Convention Center is much more than a meeting space. It’s
an economic development driver.” Stephen Perry, head of the Convention and Visitors
Bureau, chimed in alleging that taking money from the Convention Center would
harm the city in the long run as the bill “would lower dollars available for
roads, crime fighting and public safety, and sanitation and garbage collection”
and said hotel and food and beverage taxes should not go to unrelated purposes,
such as roads.
Let’s parse this stupidity, which relies heavily
on the myth that pumping money into these kinds of facilities consume fewer tax
dollars than the operation of these bring in – a fantasy disproven both in
theory and fact. Consider the logical absurdity behind this thinking: if shoveling
money to these inevitably makes more money, then why not keep upping the ante? Why
not raise and dedicate even more taxes so the Authority, who wishes to replace
the discarded project with a pie-in-the-sky
$1.5 billion riverfront hotel development currently stalled in negotiations,
can continue its endless desire to build and own property?
Indeed, even as Perry badmouthed diversion of
money from the convention center the Authority, so flush with cash, has done
precisely that, agreeing to fund nearby road construction, pay for policing in
the Vieux Carre, and bought a building several blocks away from its footprint. Tax
money gathered citywide, especially with a significant chunk of the food and
drink taxes paid by local residents, actually makes more sense spent on these purposes
that going full-frontal
Ceausesscu.
However, logical absurdity alone doesn’t disprove equating
the convention center to printing money. Academic studies demonstrate the
overblown nature of claim that more convention center-related spending pays
off. The most recent
and comprehensive effort reveals forecast demand typically falls woefully
short of projections and that adding items like hotels do little to compensate
(in fact, typically a large number of hotel room utilizers would have spent
money in the region regardless of the presence of a convention).
The Authority trots out the usual litany of supposed numbers
backing its desire to hold onto more money – conforming to the usual attempts
seen nationally which academics note usually
cater to the tourism interests that pay for these nor can these prove the
amenities caused the visitation, and which locally the Bureau for
Government Research criticized as justifying “self-imposed reserves [of the
Authority] are clearly excessive, redundant and far beyond what best practices
would recommend.”
And if needing any confirmation of the vacuity of Perry,
the top aide to GOP former Gov. Mike
Foster, on this issue, note his summation of the bills: “well-intentioned
but way off the mark and contrary to Republican economic growth principles.” Substituting
the notion of crony capitalism for “Republican” principles on economics begs
the question of whether Perry ought to just go all the way and grow a
pencil-thin mustache, prop a pince-nez on his nose, smoke a fat cigar, and just
ooze every bad stereotype the political left can conjure to try to paint the
GOP as fat-cat elitists trying to divert as much of the people’s money to their
pockets as possible.
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