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February 13, 2012

Trio of bills aimed at job creation come through House

By Benjamin Bullard The Cullman Times

CULLMAN — A trio of bills aimed at fulfilling Republican legislators’ pledge to create jobs in Alabama’s  listless economy cleared the state’s House of Representatives last week, the first of the 2012 regular legislative session.

The bills alter language in existing parts of the Code of Alabama pertaining to three areas of commerce — aircraft manufacture and retrofitting, data processing and coal mining — the legislature is hoping to woo with more compelling state and, where applicable, local tax incentives.

Rep. Mac Buttram (R-Cullman), who co-sponsored two of the bills along with a host of fellow Republican house members, said the session’s first week has, by and large, seen legislators keep to their promise of placing Alabama jobs at the top of their long list of priorities.

“I feel like we got a lot done in the first week,” Buttram said. “We’ve been telling people, ‘jobs, jobs, jobs,’ and everything we’re doing early on is meant to enhance that.”

The thinking behind all of the passed incentives proceeds from the hope that a more relaxed state sales tax for companies, combined with local municipalities’ option to abate local taxes as well, will foster job growth and create the sort of middle-class job growth that can ultimately increase the state’s sales tax base.

None of the bills was heavily contested, with the closest voting margin coming on HB154 — the data processing center bill — which passed by a 72 to 18 count. Two House members abstained.

House Democrats voiced opposition to the bills’ sacrificing current state sales tax revenues for potentially wealthy corporations, a loss of revenue they said Alabama simply can’t afford in a budget year that will likely see the state’s declining $1.7 billion General Fund slashed 25 percent.

Buttram said that’s a legitimate concern, especially since the newly-passed incentives aren’t guarantees that new corporations will immediately choose to locate in the state.

Still, he said, the incentives reflect what he and fellow GOP legislators believe is sound economic policy. Two of the bills expand upon the Tax Incentive Reform Act of 1992, an amendment to Section 40-9 of the state Code that paved the way for much of the Folsom era’s victories in recruiting Mercedes-Benz and other major industries to locate in the state in the mid-1990s.

“The concept is that you give up incentives for jobs,” he said. “If we can get back to full employment, will not have so many budget issues like we have now. With full employment — a figure somewhere around 5 percent like it was back in 2006 or 2007 — your Education Trust Fund is going to be funded, your General Fund is going to be funded, and I think these [bills] are designed to have a positive impact and take us to that point.”



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 270.

 

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