incentives

Since at least the 1980s, the Arizona Republic and its successor, The Information Center, have periodically rolled out campaigns to make the economy more than attracting freezing Midwesterners and building sprawl. I did my time in the trenches on several of these efforts earlier in the decade. The work continues with a Sunday story about attracting high-paid jobs and diversifying the economy. On the Viewpoints front, we find a piece explaining the stakes and solutions by Ioanna Morfessis, the first president of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Then there is the obligatory rebuttal by the Local Krackpot "Think" Tank: "Cut taxes and incentives to create jobs." Also: "Reducing government red tape would also create a job-friendlier climate."

And does anyone wonder why Phoenix and Arizona keep falling further behind? First, why does the "Goldwater" Institute have standing to weigh in on anything? It's an advocacy group funded by national "conservative" interests, repeating national talking points just like all the other right-wing "think tanks" that were seeded around the country out of the Mont Pelerin Society and other wealthy reactionary groups in the 1980s and 1990s. It is like PETA or the NRA. In no way is it an organization that does real research. And after years of the same old lines, what does it have to say that's new? What does its sock puppet on the editorial page have to say that's new? Nothing. Can't the Info Center find even one independent conservative voice to write something that's relevant and interesting?

More importantly: The ideology so relentlessly peddled by the "Goldwater" Institute has run Arizona for years if not decades. Its polemicists always strike the pose of victims standing up against the hordes of socialists that control everything — but it's a lie. They won. They're sore winners, out to quash any dissenting voices. Now they must continue to distract, keep the poor talk-radio zombies thinking that guv'munt is the problem. They must continue to carry water for the Real Estate Industrial Complex, which really controls the state (Please, God, give me one more boom…). All this because their ideology, implemented with ruthless, relentless effectiveness, has driven Arizona into the worst depression in its modern history. Their ideas have been tried and failed. And still they rule the day.