Posted on 09/26/2014 10:24:31 AM PDT by MichCapCon
In a recent Detroit Free Press op-ed, University of California-Berkeley Professor Robert Reich places the blame for the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy on the “mostly white” residents of Oakland County.
“But Detroit is really a model for how wealthier and whiter Americans escape the costs of public goods they would otherwise share with poorer and darker Americans,” Reich wrote. “ … But one thing is for certain: A very large and prosperous group close by won’t sacrifice a cent — the mostly white citizens of neighboring Oakland County.”
The reaction of one Oakland County official was that Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, didn’t know much about his chosen topic.
“That piece is clearly misinformed,” said Robert Daddow, Oakland County deputy county executive. “He doesn’t understand what he is talking about.”
By all accounts, the state and Oakland County are major stakeholders in Detroit. Here’s some things Reich overlooked about how county and state taxpayers help fund Detroit.
No. 1: People who work in the city but live elsewhere — such as Oakland County — pay a city income tax. That income tax for non-residents is 1.2 percent, compared to the 2.4 percent that residents of Detroit pay. The city income tax brings in $248 million and accounts for 19.2 percent of the city’s revenue.
No. 2: Detroit has a special deal with casino revenues. There are 22 other cities in Michigan that have casinos operating within their boundaries, but Detroit is the only city that can collect a “wagering tax” from casinos. That amounted to $181.4 million in 2012, or 13.5 percent of the city's revenue. Many of those bets, undoubtedly, were placed by Oakland County residents.
No. 3: Detroit is budgeted to receive $140.5 million in money taken from sales tax revenue that is collected from residents all across the state — including Oakland County — in the form of revenue sharing, which will account for 14.1 percent of the city’s revenue in fiscal 2015.
No. 4: Oakland County and its residents financially support several things that help the region, including the city of Detroit. Oakland County taxpayers voted to support a three-county millage that goes to fund the Detroit Zoo, which is located within Oakland County in the city of Huntington Woods, as well as a millage for the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Oakland County has also given $500,000 a year to Automation Alley for the past 14 years. Automation Alley is a technology business association that supports that industry, including businesses and institutions located in the city of Detroit.
Actually, they “ran away” because of an intentionally policy to run them out.
Black DEMOCRATS have been running the city for decades,
and they’re still blaming YT for their problems.
wealthier and whiter Americans escape the costs of public goods they would otherwise share with poorer and darker Americans
Trying to make it sound like the latter group actually “shares” ANY of the costs.
Yep...you didn;t think little buddy would get a real job. He should move to Detroit to aide those poor downtrodden victims of racism in their hour of need!
” Coleman Young made it illegal for whites to open new businesses within the Detroit city limits for 20 years.”
—
Good God,is that true or is it a little poetic license?
.
All you stuff are belong to us!
"Public goods" = the earnings of working people. Usually these Connie's don't expose their avarice so openly.
How did he do that?
Especially when Janet Incompetano is the president of the University of California system.
-PJ
These people are frikking nuts.
In the 1960’s Detroit was by far the most prosperous city in the entire world. It had the highest median income, home ownership, automobile ownership and led in almost every other measure of prosperity.
Then the Democrats instituted policies that rewarded criminals and welfare recipients and left homeowners and working people to suffer. Crime soared, neighborhoods were destroyed and Detroit became the crime and murder capital of the US. Welfare recipients and criminals stayed. Everyone else who could afford to leave got out.
Detroit became a city of parasites collecting government benefits paid for by taxpayers throughout the State of Michigan and the country as a whole.
The corrupt and incompetent Democrat politicians who ran Detroit stole all they could and screwed up everything else.
Neighborhood after neighborhood was destroyed until finally the entire city went under.
Only fraudulent accounting and massive taxpayer infusions kept Detroit from declaring bankruptcy sooner.
The current residents of Detroit steal everything they can get their hands on and regularly attack any honest citizens who they see in their city.
Go on the web and you can see pages of pictures of formerly beautiful, vibrant middle class neighborhoods that have been turned into decaying ruins.
I doubt Reich would dare walk in Detroit alone at night. But he is more than willing to pontificate his ignorance in the media.
Where do you think this little turds kids went to school? Black Majority school I’m sure!
Is this the same University of California system that just banned Christian chapters of InterVarsity?
Why yes. Yes it is.
Coleman Young effectively accelerated the white flight out of Detroit, and the city rapidly collapsed into ruin by the 1990's. It didn't help that Kwame Kilpatrick made the problem even worse with his highly corrupt rule as Mayor, especially the way he allied himself with Manuel "Matty" Moroun to hamper several attempts to revive the city's transportation infrasturcture.
Liberals won’t even let you vote against their policies with your feet.
No matter how badly those policies fail.
REPARATIONS are due.
That’s like say that victims or domestic abuse, who leave, are mostly responsible for the subsequent problems of the spouse that they left, under the “theory” that those they could have somehow helped to alleviate those problems had they instead decided to stick it out!
...Yea not Oakland The little hypocrite
One of many things Reich doesn't know is few whites work in downtown Detroit. Business has mostly left the city too.
You might find this article interesting:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/5_3_detroit_fights.html
Here is an excerpt:
Many white Detroit business people, unwilling to be quoted by name, look back on the Young years with particular bitterness. Says one, who left the city in 1982: “Coleman was a racist, and he made it clear that white businesses were unwelcome, which meant to me that we would go unprotected. We could get robbed, burned out, preyed upon by city inspectors, and Coleman wouldn’t do anything. He encouraged attacks on us. There was absolutely no reason—not a one—to stay in Detroit.”
Colman Young accelerated all of the problems while he turned Detroit into his own fiefdom. Read the article at #39.
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