So what is our government actually doing?

shamelessly ripped straight from aarp.net – our skyline is beautiful

In the past, I’ve written about some out-there plans by our local and state governments, like the attempt to bring back tax deductions for renovating historic buildings or the motion to allow golf cart taxis on certain Birmingham streets.  It’s great to hear about what’s going on in the moment, but how did these resolutions turn out?  Let’s take a look!

Golf Cart Taxis in Birmingham: on March 7th, the resolution to amend our city’s current taxi laws was delayed for 2 weeks.  Our city council explains that it was delayed to make sure that traffic wouldn’t be dangerous for people riding in golf carts and that the resolution would actually help local businesses like it’s supposed to.

Historical Tax Credit: this has moved forward into the committee phase, where it will be looked at tomorrow!  However, it is moving forward with changes.  The initial duration of the credit, 10 years, has been reduced to 5 years, at which point it will have to be renewed or else drop back off the books.  Another change is a the creation of a distribution system that would favor each district of Alabama equally.  If money is unused in one district, it will be returned to the larger pool and then become available to any renovation.  Finally, the minimum age of an eligible building has been increased from the federal definition of 50 years to 75 years.  All but one member of the committee voted yes on this, and the one naysayer only said nay because he liked the first bill more. Various contractors are already showing their support of the program, which is expected and intended to stimulate our state’s construction industry.

As it happens, government involves a lot of waiting.  We’ll have to wait and see what happens with all of this, but for now, things seem to be going pretty well.  Personally, I don’t see a reason to add golf carts to our streets when a fleet of electric taxis would accomplish the same thing, more comfortably, but that’s just like, my opinion, man.