Democratic Diva

18 Jun 2009 12:43 am
Posted by: Donna

I had eagerly anticipated yesterday’s Nucleus Club luncheon. The speaker was Dr. William Harris, President and CEO of the Arizona Science Foundation. The Foundation’s funding (naturally) is in jeopardy because of the budget crunch and the fact that the Legislature is in the hands of reactionaries who don’t cotton much to science. So I went to the Wyndham with every expectation of enjoying Dr. Harris’ talk and learning more about the Foundation’s mission and projects. To be sure, the good doctor had some neat things to say about solar energy and the need for the U.S. to make education and innovation a priority, as we did in the past.

But he managed to press just about every one of my angry populist hot buttons. Right off the bat, Harris lost 5000 credibility points with me by revealing that he’s an admirer of warhawk, globalism cheerleader, and former-”visionary”-turned-laughingstock Thomas Friedman. “He and I came to the same conclusions!” It’s no surprise, considering that the trajectory of Harris’ experience of the past decade mirrors Friedman’s. He and Tom Friedman jet to the same countries for the same global trade conferences, chat up same CEOs and, amazingly, develop the same outlook? Get outta here! (eyeroll) I chortled to myself when Harris admitted that he’d sketched an outline for a book about the wonders of outsourcing, only to abandon the project after realizing that Friedman had published the same (pile of horsehockey) under the title of The World Is Flat. It should also come as no surprise that Harris felt it necessary to mention several times that America’s visa policies are too oppressive and not letting enough foreign students and scientists into the country. Maybe he’s got a point, but that point seemed kind of incongruous in the context of a lecture that was supposed to be about the pressing need to grow scientists from among the young people who live in Arizona now. Or perhaps not so incongruous, considering the company Harris keeps with rabid free traders.

The good doctor is also a fan of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. He drew a parallel between Steinbrenner’s lavish investment in his baseball team to Ireland’s transformation from Europe’s third world backwater to major economic player. Harris conveniently elided the fact that Steinbrenner secured hundreds of millions of dollars in tax subsidies, in addition to his own investment. It was with that in mind that I waited patiently for Harris to finish speaking so I could ask him a question. I got more determined to ask it of him after he showed a 3 minute video of local business honchos extolling the Arizona Science Foundation. I fidgeted and tapped my fingers, checking the time on my cellphone repeatedly, as I waited for Dr. Harris to finish.

Finally, at about 10 minutes before 1pm (when we had to give up the room) he stopped speaking and the emcee asked if there were any questions. I shot up my hand and she pointed to me. Confound it, but whenever I get passionate about something I also get paralyzed with nervousness so what I wanted to say came out jumbled and inarticulate and my voice cracked but damn the torpedoes I was going to say it anyway. I asked Dr. Harris why, if the heads of companies like Boeing, Intel, and APS felt it was soooo important to fund education and research, they were constantly clamoring for tax cuts.

When I ran for AZ Senate back in 2006, the very first issue that John Huppenthal attacked me with was Intel’s 2005 sales factor reform. That law essentially eliminated 95% of Intel’s Arizona sales tax burden. Hupp claimed that I shouldn’t even be running against him, grateful as I should be that he “saved” my job. The reasoning behind that was that Intel threatened to pull a factory expansion out of Arizona unless they got the tax break. I, along with many fellow Intel-lians, knew the threat was absurd since these projects are planned years in advance and changing sites midstream (after contracts were set) could cost millions more than whatever they hoped to gain from the tax cut. That didn’t stop Hupp and (disappointingly) Gov. Napolitano from embracing that stupid tax break.

As it was, the sales factor reform was estimated to cost Arizona $100 million. That would thrice cover the $30 million requested by the Arizona Science Foundation to carry out its projects. You’d think that Dr. Harris, with all his degrees, would be able to do that simple calculation, but you’d be wrong. I pointed out the Intel sales factor reform and then pointed out how Martin Schultz was whining to the Senate how not repealing the state education equalization tax would be devastating to APS. I asked (in so many nervous, garbled words) Dr. Harris how corporations could justify demanding tax breaks out of one side of their mouths while bemoaning the deplorable state of Arizona’s schools and government services out of the other.

Dr. Harris is clearly not used to being yelled at, but he clearly has his corporate talking points down. Immediately, he launched into a vague Ireland/Steinbrenner analogy and then accused me of demonizing corporations. He warned the audience that we mustn’t get into an “us vs. them” situation. He claimed that Ireland was getting all kinds of investment because they lowered their corporate tax rate to 10%. I interrupted him to point out that while the U.S. top tax rate is 35%, 95% of corporations here don’t pay any taxes. To which he responded “that’s because they’re playing games!” To which I responded that it still meant that Ireland’s corporate tax rate was effectively higher than ours. He replied, derisively, that I didn’t understand Ireland’s system, without elaborating further. I’ll grant that since he’s spent quite a bit of time in Ireland, and I haven’t, that he’s more knowledgeable of their laws and customs than I am. But I still can’t figure out how lowering the “official” corporate tax here in the U.S. will stop companies from “playing games”, since those “games” are enabling most of them to pay nothing now. And I can acknowledge that Intel and Boeing may have sort of a leg to stand on with the “we can leave the state nyah nyah!” argument for tax cuts. But, APS? Where the hell is APS going to go? Riddle me that, Dr. Harris.

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