AJR100: Joint Resolution Text

LRB-4625/1

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1997 - 1998 LEGISLATURE

1997 Assembly JOINT RESOLUTION 100

February 3, 1998 - Introduced by Representative Ward. Referred to Committee on Rules.

AJR100,1,1 Relating to: memorializing Congress to increase the limit on private activity bonds.

AJR100,1,3 Whereas, a policy of the state of Wisconsin is to assure the health, safety and welfare of its citizens; and

AJR100,1,8 Whereas, a reasonable limit to the amount of tax-exempt private activity bonds is essential and critically important to this state and nation for financing affordable, decent, first-time, single-family homeownership opportunities, multifamily rental developments and several other equally significant purposes that contribute to the well-being of the citizens of the state; and

AJR100,1,13 Whereas, private activity bonds provide the necessary financing that allows the state of Wisconsin to remain a national leader in the creation of manufacturing jobs, and an adequate supply of tax-exempt financing is critical for Wisconsin businesses to expand productive capacity and provide additional family-supporting jobs to its citizens; and

AJR100,2,4 Whereas, the U.S. Congress, in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, established restrictions on tax-exempt private activity municipal bonds, effective January 1, 1988, that imposed a limit, based on each state's population, not to exceed the greater of $50 per capita or $150,000,000 per calendar year but failed to include an automatic inflationary multiplier to ensure that the purchasing power of this resource did not become diluted; and

AJR100,2,8 Whereas, based on Wisconsin's population, the amount of private activity bonding for this state is $258,000,000 in 1997, an amount inadequate to meet the tax-exempt private activity financing demands of the state of Wisconsin and its agencies and political subdivisions; and

AJR100,2,12 Whereas, since 1987 the effects of annual inflation have diluted the purchasing power of Wisconsin's tax-exempt private activity bonding cap by 44.6%, thereby reducing the real purchasing power of this bonding resource to only $143,000,000 in 1997; and

AJR100,2,18 Whereas, losing $115,000,000 in the real value of tax-exempt private activity bonding has been detrimental to the ability of this state to provide adequate affordable housing opportunities to its lower-income constituents by reducing nearly in half the number of single-family and multifamily housing units available and affordable to the ever-increasing number of lower-income, first-time homebuyers and renters; and

AJR100,2,22 Whereas, if the state and its political subdivisions continue to be unable to provide adequate levels of tax-exempt private activity bond financing, the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of this state will be further negatively impacted; now, therefore, be it

AJR100,3,2 Resolved by the assembly, the senate concurring, That the legislature of the state of Wisconsin urges the U.S. Congress to increase immediately the tax-exempt private activity volume cap available to each state to a level that would fully restore the purchasing power to offset the diluting effects of inflation since 1987 and to index increases for this resource to inflation in future years; and, be it further

AJR100,3,6 Resolved, That the assembly chief clerk shall provide copies of this joint resolution to the leadership of the majority and minority parties of the U.S. Congress, to the President of the United States and to the members of Wisconsin's congressional delegation.

AJR100,3,7 (End)