The September 2009 issue of Budget & Tax News opens with a report on state and local government subsidies to sports stadiums—a continuing pocketbook pain for taxpayers with no economic gain, economists say.
Also in this issue:
* Even as millions of private-sector jobs disappear, government hiring continues to expand across the country, according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
* Online retailers Amazon.com and Overstock.com dropped hundreds of affiliate advertisers in California, Hawaii, North Carolina, and Rhode Island because of new laws requiring Internet retailers to collect state sales taxes if they have local affiliate advertisers.
* Louisville, Kentucky Mayor Jerry Abramson vetoed a prevailing wage ordinance—only the third veto in his long tenure as mayor—over worries the measure would hurt the city’s business climate.
* Maryland taxpayers may not become owners of two thoroughbred racetracks after all. Proposals from private-sector bidders mean the state might not take action on the tracks, despite a law that could allow the state to take them over.
* In addition to destroying jobs and sharply raising prices for virtually all forms of energy, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy bill now in the Senate aims for a huge redistribution of wealth, says one analyst.
* The failure to close the proposed $2.5 billion lease of Chicago’s Midway Airport this spring is a setback for U.S. airport privatization, but it does not spell doom for private-sector infrastructure investment as some have suggested.