Tax a pipe dream
Editor, The Commercial:
Our new mayor has floated the desire to implement a new tax for 10 years. Right now, from a business proposition, this new tax money appears no more than a pipe dream. Best I can tell, we’ve seen that smoke and mirrors for the past 5 years or more.
Let’s speculate for a minute. What if a business approached the mayor with a proposition to create 200 jobs if she would provide starting money of $50 million dollars. Wonder what questions she might have for the prospective business owner? I would presume she would want a lot of information, a lot more than we are getting from her on this proposed tax.
Go Forward PB — YEP! Been there done that, haven’t we?
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
A Fortune 500 company is most likely going to require a pretty detailed presentation for a request of capital over $50k, let alone multi-millions. As a stakeholder in the future of Pine Bluff, we should request a more in-depth plan from the mayor on this 1%. That plan detail should outline a payback on every dollar spent. And why not?
Does the mayor have a real grasp of where our current dollars are going, how productive those expenditures are? Has she submitted any ideas for cost cutting through realignment or automation? I would think a few accomplishments in stretching our current tax dollars would be a nice start in her garnering our support, by showing us her capability to move Pine Bluff forward. We’ve seen what loose spending can do, and it ain’t good.
To move Pine Bluff forward, there needs to be a plan, a plan which has yet to be provided: Like — where the first $100 is going and what benefit that expenditure will provide Pine Bluff. Right now, it would appear the mayor’s pipe dream is nothing more than a lot of smoke.
Mayor! You were elected to Lead. Now let’s see that leadership we were promised.
Mike Lankford,
Pine Bluff