Flaming Liberal
Saturday, July 23, 2005
David C. Bellinger's Platform for Mayor of New Orleans (should he decide to run)
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1. Study plan to bring people back to New Orleans to live with a program that would give tax incentives, such as a rebate on sales tax collected, to businesses to hire Orleans Parish residents and fund the program by the sale or lease of the airport and the entire funds from the sale or lease of the airport, by law, must be deposited in an investment account and only the revenue from the investment would be spent on city programs and I expect the new revenue source would make possible the reduction of the sales and property tax and the elimination of the personal property tax . And for more details of the proposal of rebating taxes as an incentive for businesses to hire Orleans Parish residents please see my interview in the Chris Tidmore column at the Louisiana Weekly website at: http://www.louisianaweekly.com/cgi-bin/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20050110f and the unedited column is pasted below.
[Note on recent development regarding Louis Armstrong Airport: Mayor Nagin has floated the possibility of relocating the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans East which would create an ecological disaster to valued wetlands and relocating the airport outside the city limits of New Orleans would be ludicrous!
My position is to encourage the state to seek a federal grant to build a regional airport between New Orleans and Baton Rouge; thus freeing the city to sell the Louis Armstrong Airport and invest the funds in a "legally," by city charter, protected endowment for city programs and services and have rapid rail transit connecting the regional airport to New Orleans and Baton Rouge.]
2. Request the American Bar Association and the Louisiana Society of CPA’s appoint a committee to choose a city Inspector General, who will serve totally independent of the mayor and city council, and the Inspector General will have full authority to inspect and audit every city office, department, and city contract and the Inspector General will have a budget and a staff financed by a non veto proof, no cut budget and be required to report any unethical activity to the news media and any possible illegality to the appropriate law enforcement authorities such as the district attorney’s office and the U. S. Attorney and encourage the Orleans Parish School Board to do the same and the Inspector General will be required to make a semi-annual report to the people regarding the financial efficacy of city spending.
3. Recognize one of the police organizations to be the exclusive bargaining agent for police officers and, in good faith, negotiate with such police organization a union contract to give our police officers the rights and the dignity they so rightfully deserve and encourage city workers to unionize.
4. Will support and work for an amendment to the Louisiana constitution that will set the minimum wage in Orleans Parish one dollar above the federal minimum wage. And for more information regarding the positive aspects of increasing the minimum wage please read Associated Press article pasted below - Study: "Wage Laws Reduce Poverty."
5. Build a center to honor and preserve the great artistry of New Orleans' rhythm and blues artists.
6. Study for additional routes for street cars.
7. Support a Study to protect port related jobs in the city considering new terminal at the mouth of the river would impact port related employment in New Orleans and work to make the port of New Orleans the national center for cruise ships.
8. Have public financing of elections with all private and business donations to politicians made illegal.
9. Have a person who will serve as a liaison with Washington to assure New Orleans receives all federal funds the city is entitled to receive and encourage school board to do the same.
10. Ban pit bulldogs and assault weapons.
11. Require all persons possessing hand guns to be licensed and all hand guns to be registered with the New Orleans Police Department.
12. Strict enforcement of noise ordinances and other quality of life issues.
13. Work on making New Orleans a clean city.
14. Develop Monte Carlo/French Riviera luxury resort in New Orleans East on Lake Pontchartrain with a topless beach and revenue dedicated to pay raises for city workers and to reduce water rates since water rates will soon dramatically increase due to federal mandates.
15. Fully cooperate with the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation to restore the lake to a viable recreational facility.
16. Propose advertising tax on commercials broadcast on radio stations which broadcast New Orleans Saints games at game time and revenue be dedicated to renovating the Louisiana Super Dome or to build a new stadium in order to keep the NFL franchise in New Orleans and as a note, at this time, there is no tax of any kind on advertising in Louisiana.
17. Propose a program which will help train and hire disabled citizens to work in city government and encourage the Orleans Parish School Board to do the same and businesses as well and establish a Department of Disabled Services which would assist disabled citizens to obtain services and coordinate a program of volunteer citizens to meet the needs of the disabled.
18. Promote and coordinate a program working with civic groups and churches to help the 20,000 homeless persons in New Orleans to receive medical help, including mental health treatment and treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, and access to job training services and housing.
19. Fund recreational services that will be supervised such as the New Orleans Recreation Department so young people will have spaces to engage in recreational activities in areas protected from criminal activity and where there will be “zero” tolerance for criminal activity such as drug dealing.
20. Pledge to freeze all pay and benefits, and without retroactive pay upon settlement, for the mayor and the city council members and all persons who serve at the pleasure of the mayor and city council until resolution is reached to pay the firefighters their legally entitled pay and pledge to make an earnest attempt for the city to recompense Firefighters to receive their rightfully due back wages.
21. Pledge to have an administration dedicated to equal opportunity and equality for all citizens of all colors, creeds, and national origins.
22. As mayor will submit to regular and random drug testing.
23. Pledge to be answerable and accessible to the people and pledge the citizens of New Orleans an administration where honesty, integrity, and hard work will be "Priority One."
24. Support amending the city charter and the state constitution to ban government confiscation of private property for private economic development.
25. Pledge to protect the French Quarter’s residential integrity.
David C. Bellinger can be contacted at davidc53@juno.com or telephoned 24/7 (504) 246-3100.
David C. Bellinger served with no compensation as a union shop steward for the Office and Professional Employees Int’l Union (AFL-CIO) and his education includes fifty-nine hours of credit as an accounting major at the University of New Orleans and has worked in accounting and credit/collections for three steamship companies in New Orleans and grew up in the French Quarter and has attended Catholic and public schools in New Orleans and has attended school, lived, and worked no where other than New Orleans and is a registered Democrat.
[Unedited copy of above referred to column in point one of my platform]
New Business Through Tax Rebates
At the Christmas Season, the Malls are packed. The people of New Orleans go forth of their holiday spending sprees--most often in Metairie.
Cheaper land and operating costs have long propelled business to the suburbs--and not just retail.
For two generations a mass exodus of corporations have left for less expensive pastures in the suburbs, and now in many cases other states.
The poor and predominantly Black population of New Orleans proper does not have the flexibility to leave as easily--either through connections to home or economic wherewithal. To this problem, few politicians have offered a solution, yet in an interview with the Louisiana Weekly, progressive activist David Bellinger presented a concept that few on the left or right have proposed, one that has piqued the interest of the New Orleans current Mayor and his predecessor.
"As a resident of New Orleans who has never lived or worked in another city other than New Orleans," Bellinger told the Weekly, "I have, for many years, been distressed by witnessing the almost constant and seemingly ongoing and never ending flow of the tax base of New Orleans relocating outside the city. Worsening the outward migration problem, to no one’s surprise who resides in the New Orleans area, many persons who are non-residents work jobs and operate businesses in the city while paying bare minimal taxes to pay for the services they benefit from while working in New Orleans, such as police, fire protection, sewerage, drainage, street maintenance, transportation, libraries, parks and other recreational facilities like the lakefront, and other services too numerous to mention. And this point has been confirmed in the past by several economic studies.
"As an example," he continued, "of how New Orleans is subsidizing the surrounding parishes, it is my clear understanding if a resident of Metairie would drive into New Orleans and take the scenic Canal Street street car ride to work in downtown the taxpayers of New Orleans receive a substantial bill to pay the cost of that non-resident quite literally receiving a partial 'free ride' to downtown to work and would again receive a subsidized Canal Street car ride to take a paycheck back to Metairie where that person would likely pay a property tax on a residence in some form and shop and pay sales taxes and other fees in Jefferson Parish."
Bellinger joked, "This is like paying someone for the cost of the bullets to shoot you or paying Dracula to suck your blood!"
He maintains that as a clear and undeniable result of the shrinking tax base and the city being responsible for maintaining city services, finances are being ever stretched and the quality of life for its residents is being debilitated big time, for example, a high murder rate."
As a solution to the financing problems, some have suggested some form of commuter tax. But, Bellinger is quick to add, "A tax increase of any significance would, in my opinion, only exacerbate the city’s financial difficulties by causing more people to decide not to reside in New Orleans and more residents to think of relocating, but those residents who relocate will most likely continue to work in the city and contribute very modestly to the cost of the city services they utilize. And the same can generally be said if additional taxes were to be assessed on businesses."
The solution, he reasoned, incentives should exist for businesses to hire Orleans Parish residents and attract new residents.
"Quite clearly I believe the City of New Orleans has already reached, if not surpassed, the point of diminishing returns.
Therefore any additional tax increases may actually cause a reduction of revenue for the city so any tax increases would, in my opinion, be counter productive."
Some progressives have argued that an earnings tax assessed to resident and non-resident workers would no doubt more evenly distribute the tax burden to those using city services and also shift the responsibility of paying taxes to a group more likely to have the financial ability to pay. However, since the earnings tax has been ruled unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court, Bellinger called such solutions "a pipe dream".
"To amend the state constitution (necessary to implement an earnings tax) would require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature and would also have to be approved by a majority of the voters -- so forget about it. And trying to dress up the earnings tax with any other name, like a commuter tax, would be a wasted effort and toll fees would create a traffic nightmare."
"Having exhausted all conventional methods," he concluded, " of raising revenues for the City of New Orleans to improve the quality of life for its citizens and for city services necessary to keep pace with cities New Orleans competes with, I thought thinking outside the box would be required to once and forever solve the city’s never ending fiscal short falls. And by George I think I have done that."
"Since New Orleans is rich in jobs compared to the surrounding parishes and no study needs to be conducted to prove that point because one needs only to look at any traffic artery in the morning and any traffic artery in the evening and the trend is abundantly clear. People by the thousands, and many thousands at that, come into the city in the morning to work and leave in the evening.
"Therefore I have devised a revolutionary idea of using an incentive approach to reverse the flow of our citizens and attract people back to the city to reside and “pay” taxes; thusly expanding the tax base which would in turn increase city revenues from such existing taxes as real and personal property taxes and sales taxes and other fees."
"My suggestion would be the City of New Orleans grant businesses a financial incentive to hire Orleans Parish residents and this proposal could be implemented by rebating a percentage of taxes collected or paid to the city by businesses."
Bellinger does not make such a free market solution without thought.
The former Union Shop Steward is a noted progressive activist.
He is familiar to listeners of talk radio as "The Flaming Liberal" and is a frequent critic of both the Bush Administration and conservatives in general.
Nevertheless, Bellinger maintains that liberals, such as he, must recognize the direct financial benefits that the tax rebates would offer to the city--and many of its poorest citizens.
"For example," he explained, "if Wal-Mart would certify a percentage, say eighty percent of their workers are Orleans Parish residents, a payment derived from a formula determined by a study or by a commission of the sales tax Wal-Mart collected and remitted to the City of New Orleans and the Orleans Parish School Board would be rebated to Wal-Mart as an incentive for employing city residents. And the greater the percentage of Orleans Parish residents certified by the rule of law, with very harsh and severe legal consequences for any fraudulent certifications, the rebate is increased."
Under Bellinger's plan, there is no mandate that any business so screens its hires, "And let me emphasize to the point of taking excessive pain to be absolutely sure this point is very clearly understood. Under my proposal no business by any law of any kind would be legally required to hire or not hire Orleans Parish residents, but merely given a financial incentive to voluntarily employ residents of New Orleans; hence no residency requirement of any kind to work anywhere in any job of any kind anywhere in Orleans Parish. Any business of any kind would be totally free to hire as many employees as they would so choose which are non-resident Orleans Parish residents without violating any law, rule, or regulation of any sort whatsoever."
By creating financial incentives for businesses to hire residents of Orleans Parish, Bellinger reasoned many persons will find it necessary to live or relocate back to New Orleans and, by so doing, the outflow of residents will reverse and taxes paid to the city will increase. He knows his proposal is not a panacea, but he contended, it is a good start.
"Certainly the proposition of implementing the financial incentives which will be necessary to bring people back to the city to live and work would require more future study, but by rebating tax money to businesses would not only encourage businesses to employ Orleans Parish residents, but have an additional compounding effect by giving businesses in Orleans Parish a competitive advantage to competing businesses in surrounding parishes and in effect increase retail sales which will increase sales tax revenue which in turn and in part will be rebated to those very same businesses as an incentive for hiring Orleans residents."
The economic sample Bellinger related, in theory, creates an economic engine as the financial incentives would become more entrenched over time, more and more workers would become Orleans Parish residents and a more viable tax base would be revised and invigorated.
A similar approach could be applied to the real property taxes of businesses that do not deal in the retail trade such as professional services and manufacturers. And this can likely be accomplished by non retail businesses being given a voucher based on the number of Orleans Parish resident employees by the city which the owner of the business property could credit to the property tax bill.
"When job applicants realize there prospect of being hired for a job." Bellinger concluded, "they would like to have would be greater by residing in Orleans Parish it is reasonable to believe a person would consider either moving back to New Orleans or not moving at all out of New Orleans and the outward migration of our citizens would not only be stopped, but reversed!
To sum up my proposition -- businesses will be more competitive since businesses will receive a rebate (and the more competitive New Orleans’ businesses are the greater their receipts will be and more sales taxes paid to the city and to the School Board), the tax base will be increased since residents would have preferences in hiring, and because of the added people residing in the city the city would quite simply derive additional revenues from an expanding tax base via city taxes now in existence...Thereby businesses are winners, Orleans Parish residents are winners, and the city is a winner by deriving a better tax base which will in turn produce more revenue."
Bellinger recognized that transition costs in the short term to present a challenge.
"However I am aware a fly is in the ointment similar to the gap created by privatizing Social Security which is a period of transition would be needed before the program could be enacted. To overcome this problem, I would suggest creating a temporary tax, and I emphasize the word 'temporary' to the tenth degree; that is, the life of the tax’s limited life would be written in stone.
And one tax that could be a temporary tax would be a tax on retail businesses based upon a percentage of their sales."
In Louisiana, temporary taxes have a way of becoming permanent. To prevent this, Bellinger proposed, "When a “temporary” source of revenue has been created such revenue would be collected and deposited in an escrow account drawing interest and only, by force of the “law,” be rebated to employers when the incentive program is initiated and the funds generated by the temporary tax, by force of the “law,” will not be allowed to be allocated or spent for any other purpose. Therefore the temporary tax would be merely an advance of future rebates to employers and excluding the temporary tax I have proposed no person or business has been taxed a single dime, not even the guy behind the tree."
Bellinger recognized that a tax proposal could kill his plan, so he took a suggestion out of Mayor Nagin's proverbial playbook. "Another option to finance the transition would be to sell the Louis Armstrong Airport with the money from the sale being dedicated to financing the incentive program and by selling the airport the city would experience no loss of revenue since the airport, by law, is non-profit.
What I have proposed is a bold idea and would need study and find tuning, but my proposal could be a viable system of job creation and a revenue basis that would propel New Orleans into a position of financial viability and provide its citizens with a quality of life by having available the crucial funds to provide the services needed to maintain a quality lifestyle."
And should the surrounding parishes object, Bellinger offered a stark choice, "I would challenge their objection by asking the surrounding parishes to immediately support a constitutional amendment to create a New Orleans earnings tax or a metropolitan earnings tax and if that compromise is not acceptable then the surrounding parishes would have undoubtedly stated they are comfortable with the status quo and that is reprehensibly objectionable."
David Bellinger has begun to lobby Administration officials on his proposal. Both current Mayor Nagin and former Mayor Morial are said to have considered the idea attractive.
The progressive activist has pledged that if city officials do not wish to discuss the reform, he is willing to organize an effort to put the proposal before the people on a ballot initiative.
He can be contacted by email at 404-963-5388
STUDY: “WAGE LAWS REDUCE POVERTY”
March 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:51 p.m. ET
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Home health care worker Claudia Arevalo says her life changed for the better in 2000, when San Francisco enacted its living wage law.
In 1998 she earned $6 an hour, rented out a room in her apartment and worked 300-hour months that included night shifts as a janitor. Now Arevalo, 37, works a regular schedule.
I have more time for my family, for myself. I have a better life,'' she said Wednesday. It's the living wage that made the changes come.''
A national study published Thursday by a private nonprofit, nonpartisan research group found many others also benefited.
The study, conducted by the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California, said cities like San Francisco that boost minimum wages above the federal floor are reducing poverty rates for the working poor, even as they increase unemployment.
More than 60 U.S. cities, counties or public agencies have adopted a living wage policy since 1994, despite critics who argue paying more than the federal $5.15-per-hour minimum leads to layoffs while benefitting only a fortunate few who keep their jobs.
Still, the new study may encourage living wage advocates -- not least because its author is a noted minimum wage critic.
Living wages actually reduce poverty,'' said author David Neumark, an economics professor at Michigan State University. If someone's getting up on a soapbox saying these are a disaster, they may believe it, but there's really no evidence.''
Living-wage ordinances often are not as radical as they sound. None of them applies to all workers in a city -- most cover only city employees or private companies with significant government contracts. And Neumark said the average pay raise equals around 3.5 percent, though it may be significantly higher for some workers.
Yet the movement has been growing.
California has at least 10 living wage cities, according to the study, including Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. Baltimore passed the first living wage law, with Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Milwaukee, Omaha, Neb., and San Antonio among the large cities that followed.
Urban poverty rates fell from 1996 through 2000, the span Neumark studied using Census Bureau data. But the living wage accelerated the drop in those cities, he said.
Neumark concluded that cities where the living wage is 50 percent higher than the federal or state minimum see poverty drop 1.8 percentage points.
There are losers, too. According to Neumark's projections, the 10 percent of workers who earn the least in these cities would experience a 7 percent increase in unemployment.
On balance, however, it looks like the winners win more than the losers lose,'' Neumark said.
San Francisco's living wage of $10 an hour is about 50 percent higher than the state's $6.75-an-hour floor. Over a 2,000 hour work year, that could mean a $6,500 raise to $20,000 -- and the difference between official poverty and a lifestyle less desperate.
The government says a family of two adults and one child needs $15,020 a year to stay out of poverty, though that is low for a high-cost region such as the San Francisco Bay area.
Critics counter that there are better ways, such as the earned income tax credit, to help the poor.
Workers who hover around the poverty line can lose valuable federal benefits if they earn just a few thousand dollars more, according to Richard Toikka of the Washington-based Employment Policies Institute.
It's not the best way to go,'' Toikka said. The workers that are harmed are the ones that have the most serious skill deficits.''
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On the Net:
Public Policy Institute of California: http://www.ppic.org
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now living wage site: http://www.livingwagecampaign.org
Employment Policies Institute: http://www.epionline.org
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Living-Wage-2nd-Ld-Writethru.html?ex=1017211121&ei=1&en=3fafd21e3e2c1fe7
1. Study plan to bring people back to New Orleans to live with a program that would give tax incentives, such as a rebate on sales tax collected, to businesses to hire Orleans Parish residents and fund the program by the sale or lease of the airport and the entire funds from the sale or lease of the airport, by law, must be deposited in an investment account and only the revenue from the investment would be spent on city programs and I expect the new revenue source would make possible the reduction of the sales and property tax and the elimination of the personal property tax . And for more details of the proposal of rebating taxes as an incentive for businesses to hire Orleans Parish residents please see my interview in the Chris Tidmore column at the Louisiana Weekly website at: http://www.louisianaweekly.com/cgi-bin/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20050110f and the unedited column is pasted below.
[Note on recent development regarding Louis Armstrong Airport: Mayor Nagin has floated the possibility of relocating the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans East which would create an ecological disaster to valued wetlands and relocating the airport outside the city limits of New Orleans would be ludicrous!
My position is to encourage the state to seek a federal grant to build a regional airport between New Orleans and Baton Rouge; thus freeing the city to sell the Louis Armstrong Airport and invest the funds in a "legally," by city charter, protected endowment for city programs and services and have rapid rail transit connecting the regional airport to New Orleans and Baton Rouge.]
2. Request the American Bar Association and the Louisiana Society of CPA’s appoint a committee to choose a city Inspector General, who will serve totally independent of the mayor and city council, and the Inspector General will have full authority to inspect and audit every city office, department, and city contract and the Inspector General will have a budget and a staff financed by a non veto proof, no cut budget and be required to report any unethical activity to the news media and any possible illegality to the appropriate law enforcement authorities such as the district attorney’s office and the U. S. Attorney and encourage the Orleans Parish School Board to do the same and the Inspector General will be required to make a semi-annual report to the people regarding the financial efficacy of city spending.
3. Recognize one of the police organizations to be the exclusive bargaining agent for police officers and, in good faith, negotiate with such police organization a union contract to give our police officers the rights and the dignity they so rightfully deserve and encourage city workers to unionize.
4. Will support and work for an amendment to the Louisiana constitution that will set the minimum wage in Orleans Parish one dollar above the federal minimum wage. And for more information regarding the positive aspects of increasing the minimum wage please read Associated Press article pasted below - Study: "Wage Laws Reduce Poverty."
5. Build a center to honor and preserve the great artistry of New Orleans' rhythm and blues artists.
6. Study for additional routes for street cars.
7. Support a Study to protect port related jobs in the city considering new terminal at the mouth of the river would impact port related employment in New Orleans and work to make the port of New Orleans the national center for cruise ships.
8. Have public financing of elections with all private and business donations to politicians made illegal.
9. Have a person who will serve as a liaison with Washington to assure New Orleans receives all federal funds the city is entitled to receive and encourage school board to do the same.
10. Ban pit bulldogs and assault weapons.
11. Require all persons possessing hand guns to be licensed and all hand guns to be registered with the New Orleans Police Department.
12. Strict enforcement of noise ordinances and other quality of life issues.
13. Work on making New Orleans a clean city.
14. Develop Monte Carlo/French Riviera luxury resort in New Orleans East on Lake Pontchartrain with a topless beach and revenue dedicated to pay raises for city workers and to reduce water rates since water rates will soon dramatically increase due to federal mandates.
15. Fully cooperate with the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation to restore the lake to a viable recreational facility.
16. Propose advertising tax on commercials broadcast on radio stations which broadcast New Orleans Saints games at game time and revenue be dedicated to renovating the Louisiana Super Dome or to build a new stadium in order to keep the NFL franchise in New Orleans and as a note, at this time, there is no tax of any kind on advertising in Louisiana.
17. Propose a program which will help train and hire disabled citizens to work in city government and encourage the Orleans Parish School Board to do the same and businesses as well and establish a Department of Disabled Services which would assist disabled citizens to obtain services and coordinate a program of volunteer citizens to meet the needs of the disabled.
18. Promote and coordinate a program working with civic groups and churches to help the 20,000 homeless persons in New Orleans to receive medical help, including mental health treatment and treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, and access to job training services and housing.
19. Fund recreational services that will be supervised such as the New Orleans Recreation Department so young people will have spaces to engage in recreational activities in areas protected from criminal activity and where there will be “zero” tolerance for criminal activity such as drug dealing.
20. Pledge to freeze all pay and benefits, and without retroactive pay upon settlement, for the mayor and the city council members and all persons who serve at the pleasure of the mayor and city council until resolution is reached to pay the firefighters their legally entitled pay and pledge to make an earnest attempt for the city to recompense Firefighters to receive their rightfully due back wages.
21. Pledge to have an administration dedicated to equal opportunity and equality for all citizens of all colors, creeds, and national origins.
22. As mayor will submit to regular and random drug testing.
23. Pledge to be answerable and accessible to the people and pledge the citizens of New Orleans an administration where honesty, integrity, and hard work will be "Priority One."
24. Support amending the city charter and the state constitution to ban government confiscation of private property for private economic development.
25. Pledge to protect the French Quarter’s residential integrity.
David C. Bellinger, a blind man with a "vision".
David C. Bellinger can be contacted at davidc53@juno.com or telephoned 24/7 (504) 246-3100.
David C. Bellinger served with no compensation as a union shop steward for the Office and Professional Employees Int’l Union (AFL-CIO) and his education includes fifty-nine hours of credit as an accounting major at the University of New Orleans and has worked in accounting and credit/collections for three steamship companies in New Orleans and grew up in the French Quarter and has attended Catholic and public schools in New Orleans and has attended school, lived, and worked no where other than New Orleans and is a registered Democrat.
[Unedited copy of above referred to column in point one of my platform]
New Business Through Tax Rebates
At the Christmas Season, the Malls are packed. The people of New Orleans go forth of their holiday spending sprees--most often in Metairie.
Cheaper land and operating costs have long propelled business to the suburbs--and not just retail.
For two generations a mass exodus of corporations have left for less expensive pastures in the suburbs, and now in many cases other states.
The poor and predominantly Black population of New Orleans proper does not have the flexibility to leave as easily--either through connections to home or economic wherewithal. To this problem, few politicians have offered a solution, yet in an interview with the Louisiana Weekly, progressive activist David Bellinger presented a concept that few on the left or right have proposed, one that has piqued the interest of the New Orleans current Mayor and his predecessor.
"As a resident of New Orleans who has never lived or worked in another city other than New Orleans," Bellinger told the Weekly, "I have, for many years, been distressed by witnessing the almost constant and seemingly ongoing and never ending flow of the tax base of New Orleans relocating outside the city. Worsening the outward migration problem, to no one’s surprise who resides in the New Orleans area, many persons who are non-residents work jobs and operate businesses in the city while paying bare minimal taxes to pay for the services they benefit from while working in New Orleans, such as police, fire protection, sewerage, drainage, street maintenance, transportation, libraries, parks and other recreational facilities like the lakefront, and other services too numerous to mention. And this point has been confirmed in the past by several economic studies.
"As an example," he continued, "of how New Orleans is subsidizing the surrounding parishes, it is my clear understanding if a resident of Metairie would drive into New Orleans and take the scenic Canal Street street car ride to work in downtown the taxpayers of New Orleans receive a substantial bill to pay the cost of that non-resident quite literally receiving a partial 'free ride' to downtown to work and would again receive a subsidized Canal Street car ride to take a paycheck back to Metairie where that person would likely pay a property tax on a residence in some form and shop and pay sales taxes and other fees in Jefferson Parish."
Bellinger joked, "This is like paying someone for the cost of the bullets to shoot you or paying Dracula to suck your blood!"
He maintains that as a clear and undeniable result of the shrinking tax base and the city being responsible for maintaining city services, finances are being ever stretched and the quality of life for its residents is being debilitated big time, for example, a high murder rate."
As a solution to the financing problems, some have suggested some form of commuter tax. But, Bellinger is quick to add, "A tax increase of any significance would, in my opinion, only exacerbate the city’s financial difficulties by causing more people to decide not to reside in New Orleans and more residents to think of relocating, but those residents who relocate will most likely continue to work in the city and contribute very modestly to the cost of the city services they utilize. And the same can generally be said if additional taxes were to be assessed on businesses."
The solution, he reasoned, incentives should exist for businesses to hire Orleans Parish residents and attract new residents.
"Quite clearly I believe the City of New Orleans has already reached, if not surpassed, the point of diminishing returns.
Therefore any additional tax increases may actually cause a reduction of revenue for the city so any tax increases would, in my opinion, be counter productive."
Some progressives have argued that an earnings tax assessed to resident and non-resident workers would no doubt more evenly distribute the tax burden to those using city services and also shift the responsibility of paying taxes to a group more likely to have the financial ability to pay. However, since the earnings tax has been ruled unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court, Bellinger called such solutions "a pipe dream".
"To amend the state constitution (necessary to implement an earnings tax) would require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature and would also have to be approved by a majority of the voters -- so forget about it. And trying to dress up the earnings tax with any other name, like a commuter tax, would be a wasted effort and toll fees would create a traffic nightmare."
"Having exhausted all conventional methods," he concluded, " of raising revenues for the City of New Orleans to improve the quality of life for its citizens and for city services necessary to keep pace with cities New Orleans competes with, I thought thinking outside the box would be required to once and forever solve the city’s never ending fiscal short falls. And by George I think I have done that."
"Since New Orleans is rich in jobs compared to the surrounding parishes and no study needs to be conducted to prove that point because one needs only to look at any traffic artery in the morning and any traffic artery in the evening and the trend is abundantly clear. People by the thousands, and many thousands at that, come into the city in the morning to work and leave in the evening.
"Therefore I have devised a revolutionary idea of using an incentive approach to reverse the flow of our citizens and attract people back to the city to reside and “pay” taxes; thusly expanding the tax base which would in turn increase city revenues from such existing taxes as real and personal property taxes and sales taxes and other fees."
"My suggestion would be the City of New Orleans grant businesses a financial incentive to hire Orleans Parish residents and this proposal could be implemented by rebating a percentage of taxes collected or paid to the city by businesses."
Bellinger does not make such a free market solution without thought.
The former Union Shop Steward is a noted progressive activist.
He is familiar to listeners of talk radio as "The Flaming Liberal" and is a frequent critic of both the Bush Administration and conservatives in general.
Nevertheless, Bellinger maintains that liberals, such as he, must recognize the direct financial benefits that the tax rebates would offer to the city--and many of its poorest citizens.
"For example," he explained, "if Wal-Mart would certify a percentage, say eighty percent of their workers are Orleans Parish residents, a payment derived from a formula determined by a study or by a commission of the sales tax Wal-Mart collected and remitted to the City of New Orleans and the Orleans Parish School Board would be rebated to Wal-Mart as an incentive for employing city residents. And the greater the percentage of Orleans Parish residents certified by the rule of law, with very harsh and severe legal consequences for any fraudulent certifications, the rebate is increased."
Under Bellinger's plan, there is no mandate that any business so screens its hires, "And let me emphasize to the point of taking excessive pain to be absolutely sure this point is very clearly understood. Under my proposal no business by any law of any kind would be legally required to hire or not hire Orleans Parish residents, but merely given a financial incentive to voluntarily employ residents of New Orleans; hence no residency requirement of any kind to work anywhere in any job of any kind anywhere in Orleans Parish. Any business of any kind would be totally free to hire as many employees as they would so choose which are non-resident Orleans Parish residents without violating any law, rule, or regulation of any sort whatsoever."
By creating financial incentives for businesses to hire residents of Orleans Parish, Bellinger reasoned many persons will find it necessary to live or relocate back to New Orleans and, by so doing, the outflow of residents will reverse and taxes paid to the city will increase. He knows his proposal is not a panacea, but he contended, it is a good start.
"Certainly the proposition of implementing the financial incentives which will be necessary to bring people back to the city to live and work would require more future study, but by rebating tax money to businesses would not only encourage businesses to employ Orleans Parish residents, but have an additional compounding effect by giving businesses in Orleans Parish a competitive advantage to competing businesses in surrounding parishes and in effect increase retail sales which will increase sales tax revenue which in turn and in part will be rebated to those very same businesses as an incentive for hiring Orleans residents."
The economic sample Bellinger related, in theory, creates an economic engine as the financial incentives would become more entrenched over time, more and more workers would become Orleans Parish residents and a more viable tax base would be revised and invigorated.
A similar approach could be applied to the real property taxes of businesses that do not deal in the retail trade such as professional services and manufacturers. And this can likely be accomplished by non retail businesses being given a voucher based on the number of Orleans Parish resident employees by the city which the owner of the business property could credit to the property tax bill.
"When job applicants realize there prospect of being hired for a job." Bellinger concluded, "they would like to have would be greater by residing in Orleans Parish it is reasonable to believe a person would consider either moving back to New Orleans or not moving at all out of New Orleans and the outward migration of our citizens would not only be stopped, but reversed!
To sum up my proposition -- businesses will be more competitive since businesses will receive a rebate (and the more competitive New Orleans’ businesses are the greater their receipts will be and more sales taxes paid to the city and to the School Board), the tax base will be increased since residents would have preferences in hiring, and because of the added people residing in the city the city would quite simply derive additional revenues from an expanding tax base via city taxes now in existence...Thereby businesses are winners, Orleans Parish residents are winners, and the city is a winner by deriving a better tax base which will in turn produce more revenue."
Bellinger recognized that transition costs in the short term to present a challenge.
"However I am aware a fly is in the ointment similar to the gap created by privatizing Social Security which is a period of transition would be needed before the program could be enacted. To overcome this problem, I would suggest creating a temporary tax, and I emphasize the word 'temporary' to the tenth degree; that is, the life of the tax’s limited life would be written in stone.
And one tax that could be a temporary tax would be a tax on retail businesses based upon a percentage of their sales."
In Louisiana, temporary taxes have a way of becoming permanent. To prevent this, Bellinger proposed, "When a “temporary” source of revenue has been created such revenue would be collected and deposited in an escrow account drawing interest and only, by force of the “law,” be rebated to employers when the incentive program is initiated and the funds generated by the temporary tax, by force of the “law,” will not be allowed to be allocated or spent for any other purpose. Therefore the temporary tax would be merely an advance of future rebates to employers and excluding the temporary tax I have proposed no person or business has been taxed a single dime, not even the guy behind the tree."
Bellinger recognized that a tax proposal could kill his plan, so he took a suggestion out of Mayor Nagin's proverbial playbook. "Another option to finance the transition would be to sell the Louis Armstrong Airport with the money from the sale being dedicated to financing the incentive program and by selling the airport the city would experience no loss of revenue since the airport, by law, is non-profit.
What I have proposed is a bold idea and would need study and find tuning, but my proposal could be a viable system of job creation and a revenue basis that would propel New Orleans into a position of financial viability and provide its citizens with a quality of life by having available the crucial funds to provide the services needed to maintain a quality lifestyle."
And should the surrounding parishes object, Bellinger offered a stark choice, "I would challenge their objection by asking the surrounding parishes to immediately support a constitutional amendment to create a New Orleans earnings tax or a metropolitan earnings tax and if that compromise is not acceptable then the surrounding parishes would have undoubtedly stated they are comfortable with the status quo and that is reprehensibly objectionable."
David Bellinger has begun to lobby Administration officials on his proposal. Both current Mayor Nagin and former Mayor Morial are said to have considered the idea attractive.
The progressive activist has pledged that if city officials do not wish to discuss the reform, he is willing to organize an effort to put the proposal before the people on a ballot initiative.
He can be contacted by email at 404-963-5388
STUDY: “WAGE LAWS REDUCE POVERTY”
March 14, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:51 p.m. ET
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Home health care worker Claudia Arevalo says her life changed for the better in 2000, when San Francisco enacted its living wage law.
In 1998 she earned $6 an hour, rented out a room in her apartment and worked 300-hour months that included night shifts as a janitor. Now Arevalo, 37, works a regular schedule.
I have more time for my family, for myself. I have a better life,'' she said Wednesday. It's the living wage that made the changes come.''
A national study published Thursday by a private nonprofit, nonpartisan research group found many others also benefited.
The study, conducted by the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California, said cities like San Francisco that boost minimum wages above the federal floor are reducing poverty rates for the working poor, even as they increase unemployment.
More than 60 U.S. cities, counties or public agencies have adopted a living wage policy since 1994, despite critics who argue paying more than the federal $5.15-per-hour minimum leads to layoffs while benefitting only a fortunate few who keep their jobs.
Still, the new study may encourage living wage advocates -- not least because its author is a noted minimum wage critic.
Living wages actually reduce poverty,'' said author David Neumark, an economics professor at Michigan State University. If someone's getting up on a soapbox saying these are a disaster, they may believe it, but there's really no evidence.''
Living-wage ordinances often are not as radical as they sound. None of them applies to all workers in a city -- most cover only city employees or private companies with significant government contracts. And Neumark said the average pay raise equals around 3.5 percent, though it may be significantly higher for some workers.
Yet the movement has been growing.
California has at least 10 living wage cities, according to the study, including Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose. Baltimore passed the first living wage law, with Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Milwaukee, Omaha, Neb., and San Antonio among the large cities that followed.
Urban poverty rates fell from 1996 through 2000, the span Neumark studied using Census Bureau data. But the living wage accelerated the drop in those cities, he said.
Neumark concluded that cities where the living wage is 50 percent higher than the federal or state minimum see poverty drop 1.8 percentage points.
There are losers, too. According to Neumark's projections, the 10 percent of workers who earn the least in these cities would experience a 7 percent increase in unemployment.
On balance, however, it looks like the winners win more than the losers lose,'' Neumark said.
San Francisco's living wage of $10 an hour is about 50 percent higher than the state's $6.75-an-hour floor. Over a 2,000 hour work year, that could mean a $6,500 raise to $20,000 -- and the difference between official poverty and a lifestyle less desperate.
The government says a family of two adults and one child needs $15,020 a year to stay out of poverty, though that is low for a high-cost region such as the San Francisco Bay area.
Critics counter that there are better ways, such as the earned income tax credit, to help the poor.
Workers who hover around the poverty line can lose valuable federal benefits if they earn just a few thousand dollars more, according to Richard Toikka of the Washington-based Employment Policies Institute.
It's not the best way to go,'' Toikka said. The workers that are harmed are the ones that have the most serious skill deficits.''
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On the Net:
Public Policy Institute of California: http://www.ppic.org
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now living wage site: http://www.livingwagecampaign.org
Employment Policies Institute: http://www.epionline.org
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Living-Wage-2nd-Ld-Writethru.html?ex=1017211121&ei=1&en=3fafd21e3e2c1fe7
