News: "The goal of this session was to revitalize the economy, that was also the main purpose of the Economic Revitalization Task Force. How close did they come to achieving that goal?"

Sam: "The Legislature failed, absolutely. The economy is not being revitalized. There are no tax breaks for business. There is no reduction of pyramiding in the GET. We spent the entire session and the extended session battling the 35% increase in the general excise tax.

There is nothing that is going to give businesses more confidence or anything that would attract outside capital. We did not change either the business climate or attitude.

Having said that, there were a couple of brighter spots than last year. Notably:

The small business regulatory reform task force package passed nearly intact.

The Privatization Bill is not what the mayors wanted: It provides for a three year period in which privatization will be allowed - after that

period of time there is a commission to look into specific contracts - it's not business friendly. Businesses want long term solutions, this is a short term one.

The Criminal History checks passed allowing businesses to inquire into the past history of employees so that was a pretty good bill.

The emphasis on Personal Income Tax Reduction was basically smoke and mirrors.

The tax doesn't take effect until next year and goes from 10% to 8.75% the first year and then 8.25 % over the four year period.

The state is estimating this is 159 million dollar tax savings the first year, maybe. The amount of money that is going to be in the taxpayers pocket is not going to be soon enough and significant enough to cause any economic turnaround. The mainstream media have stated that the decrease is in the neighborhood of 25%, but if you calculate it, it is far less than that. It obviously is a step in the right direction in that it will lower taxes on lower and middle income taxpayers, but it won't alleviate the problems of the business taxpayer.

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