Urban Regeneration Bill

[Sam Spade]

Urban Regeneration Bill
3. Wherever possible incentives should be given to encourage the return of industries of historic importance to the city in question.

Please define what this means and please give an example of a "industry of historic importance to a city"?

As presently residing in a city that would fall under your plan here, I am leery of throwing federal money where federal money is already being thrown.

Do you have any original estimates at how much something like this might cost?

[Sam Spade]

Just to clarify: s.3 is intended more as a *direction* to the proposed Urban Regeneration Commision than anything else

Ok, now I really oppose this bill.

Why do we need another federal bureaucratic wing to tell people that it only supports giving money to help certain sectors in certain places, but to tell others to go away because they don't fit a "industry of historic importance"?

Too much federal government involvement for me.

[Sam Spade]

Why do we need another federal bureaucratic wing to tell people that it only supports giving money to help certain sectors in certain places, but to tell others to go away because they don't fit a "industry of historic importance"?

I didn't say that

That's the implication of the combination of these two clauses.

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This new bureaucratic commission, whom I assume will be appointed by the President (or the Senate, that's not exactly clear) has the authority on a case-by-case basis to determine where these tax breaks and grants will go to.  (whose scope and cost to the taxpayer is still unclear)

The third clause is vague enough as to give this commission great power and scope in "interpreting" what "industries of historic importance" are in a particular city to justify their decisions.

I will never support any bill that has government bureaucrats deciding that some private enterprise is more important to a region than another.  That reeks of fascism to me.

[Sam Spade]

I am not advocating building concentration camps, killing my political opponants or being generally racist and dictatorial.
Misuse of "fascism" as a generic term of abuse for something you don't like devalues the word and is very irresponsible.

That's not what fascism is.  You're confusing a rather unique "German" interpretation called Nazism with fascism.  Read up on how Mussolini described it in "What is Fascism" in 1932.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html

Fascism is a political and economic system where power is controlled in the hands of a dictator who embodies the conception of the State.  This state organizes the nation under its one will, embodied by the dictator combines business, religion, and social planning and all other affairs of this life under the wills and auspices of the state, its leader and its bureaucracy.

As you can see, these are the reasons why I'm concerned about giving a bureaucratic institution so much power in telling private enterprise what to do and where. 

Why should tire production be given taxpayer money in Akron, as opposed to Memphis or Denver or wherever else?  Is it going to be more profitable there than anywhere else? 

Community spirit and confidence is not created around a single plant or materialistic enterprise, but is promoted through well-being, religious faith and loyalty to country.

I will oppose this bill and urge my Senators to oppose it as it will hurt all industries in places where the government bureaucracy deems it not "important enough to the community".

[Sam Spade]

Your being intellectually dishonest to a shocking degree here.
Has anyone without an ideological axe to grind got any comments on the bill?

I am not being intellectually dishonest at all and I have no ideological axe to grind here either.

I just refuse to see how this helps anyone in Atlasia one bit, except by giving more jobs to Nyman bureaucrats.

If we want to promote economic incentive and growth, why don't we introduce tax incentives to spur growth of the industries of the 21st century, not by throwing at money at trying to revive the dead industries of the 19th and 20th century.

[Sam Spade]

I urge my Senators to vote their consciences on this bill.

My conscience says no.

[Sam Spade]

I urge my Senators to vote their consciences on this bill.

My conscience says no.

You are not my Senator though.

Well, of course.    I just wanted to say it.