On Friday, September 24, 2004, at 09:47 AM, Victoria Heller wrote:
Who are the hypocrites?
Now before you blame all our fiscal problems on hard working folks like my deceased grandmother who survived in Minneapolis on Social Security and a little help from the city in the form of those forgivable loans, let's look at one of Minnesota's fattest corporate welfare muthas...
Northwest Airlines just the other day called in some political debts and got our Republican governor and his hencemen to promise them another billion dollars or so of our dollars to support their monopoly. Not yet having a supercomputer in my arsenal (I haven't upgraded to a G4 or G5 yet) I won't even attempt to calculate the further subsidy Northwest will steal from having the most profitable monopoly position of being the only airline in the main terminal.
Now, if NWA wants the airport to themselves so badly, why don't they just buy it? Because commercial aviation is bleeding $$$ so fast that even the junk bond market wouldn't buy it! So we taxpayers get to subsidize NWA's de facto privatization of MSP!
The Minneapolis homeowners who "know" their properties are "worth" more than
their "taxable" values. They brag about "increased values" but are
UNWILLING to pay their fare share of the tax burden. They are the loudest
complainers about "lack of public resources".
Vicky, you callin' out me and my fellow DFLers?
I and many of my fellow DFLers have many a time said, if it'll put more cops on the street, "tax me!" However, we've already been taxed more than enough to subsidize commercial aviation which has operated at a net loss over it's history.
And remember that quote from that famous drag queen, Holly Woodlawn- "I was born on welfare and I'll die on welfare". She broke her promise and now has a successful stage career and even a web page. Northwest was born on corporate welfare, there first customer being the Post Office. Having recently thrown the mail of their planes, Northwest will probably die on welfare after we taxpayers take a hit- the Republican's latest "gift" of a billion or so of our dollars to Northwest... so who's the real welfare mutha that's pickin' us taxpayer's pockets?
They are the people who vote for ridiculous spending - as long as someone
else pays.
Like the Carol Malnau Freeway in the southwest exurbs... god forbid that a CEO or even a secretary of transportation have to stop for a light on the way to "work"!
In fact, several complaining Listmembers have actually received
their homes and/or upgrades to their homes at the expense of Minneapolis
taxpayers. Don't forget that the MCDA handed out millions of dollars worth
of "forgivable" loans to Minneapolis residents. These payments are gifts of
public money - and should be taxable income for State and Federal purposes.
May of these people are on the public payroll too. Of all people, they
should be willing to pay their fare share.
Again Vicky, you callin' me out? Go ahead, make my rhetorical day!
Back in the early "90s my house was still in my grandma's hands, and living on Social Security and a pension of a hundred dollars or so a month from when she retired in the 60s, suffice to say she couldn't afford any major repairs never mind upgrades of her home. First her home was broken into, and our city gave her a deferred loan for new more secure entry doors and other security improvements. Then the house next door was torched and again the city of Minneapolis came through to install new water and sewer lines to replace the joint lines shared with the burned out shell of the house next store that had to be demolished. In total those deferred loans amounted to but a couple thousand dollars. Without them grandma would have moved to a nursing home and cost us taxpayers about $4000 a month. So those deferred loans were in reality paid back in less than a month!
The only deferred loan I am a party too is $4000 for a garage. That was less than half the cost of the garage, and the loan allowed me to spend more on the garage to make it match the neighboring homes rather than look like something out of the suburbs. Around a thousand of those deferred loan dollars went to acquire the 2 unbuildable tax forfeit lots next door, and I've saved the taxpayers a couple thousand more in maintainece costs on those lots since then. The garage most importantly allowed me to secure my vehicles, lawnmower, etc.. Since Republican president Bush assumed office crime here has risen to the point that i would have had to move out and abandon this home were it not for that garage.
So that less than $10,000 in deferred loans has kept my home on the tax rolls and payed for itself before they even became forgivable. Meanwhile, the airlines demand further billion dollar subsidies and the Republicans are more than happy to give them more of we taxpayers money...
I spend a lot of time researching tax records and I am quite confident that
I could increase the City's tax base by at least $10 million immediately -
simply by correcting errors and under-assessments.
A random example that I came across the other day: 4200 Dupont Ave N.
Purchased in 2001 for $185,000, current tax value is $122,900. Why? I've
found hundreds of similar examples.
Maybe because property values are falling in working class neighborhoods since a Republican took the presidency in 2001... BTW, individual property values don't mean much- consider the valuations of Wonder Bread/Hostess Cake (IBC), which filed chapter 11 two days ago. Back in the mid '80s we paid them $4,350,000 to acquire a bakery that had an assessed valuation of $264,000 and took up half a downtown block. Clearly someone was suppressing their assessments and taxes... Their little thrift store on Lake Street's assessed value has steadily ratched up to around half a million dollars these last few years while commercial property owners all over the city and country have been winning assessment reductions due to the huge surplus of commercial space since the current Republican president assumed office. The assessment's of IBC's depot in New Hope show a similar pattern... perhaps IBC wanted to leave the assessments high so the company would look more solvent than it really was? BTW, before filing bankruptcy IBC had already paid their second half taxes not due 'til october 15th...
involuntarily subsidizing NWA and a bunch of other corporate welfare muthas from Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
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