WildGopher
Registered User
- Jun 13, 2012
- 1,072
- 159
"...hell, we even tried completely failing to live up to our lease agreement there for a few years, and even THAT didn't work!"
Best line of the day!
Bettman might have messed up in his zeal to show how wonderful this new arena project will be for Arizona. At the end of the second paragraph on page 2, he writes: "And the new taxes retained by the State will exceed current tax dollars." Then near the end of the letter he writes the project "will generate new tax revenue."
That runs smack dab into an Arizona law that sets a higher bar for passing a new law if it means the state will collect more money - a safeguard to make it harder for the legislature to raise taxes or fees. If the bill does the things Bettman is saying, it probably requires a 2/3rds vote - 20 Senators, not a majority of 16. It would be fitting justice if this bozo just raised the bar to impossible levels with his braggadocio. LeBlanc and Worsley have been very careful not to suggest the bill would generate net tax revenue for Arizona. A) because it won't; but B) presumably because if it was determined to do that, it would require 20 votes.
The legislative analyst has already issued an opinion that the bill won't increase net revenues to the state (in fact, he/she wrote it likely will decrease them). But if this bill gets to the floor, Bettman's words could be used by some to challenge that opinion and to try to get someone to rule that it requires 20 votes. Alternatively, an opponent of the bill could offer an amendment to create state revenue from the bill (state revenue from the 2% tax currently would go to pay the state's bonds, with the rest going back to IA), which, if it passed, would trigger the 20-vote rule.