Posted on 03/22/2007 12:24:45 PM PDT by sbMKE
Bridgeport CT was another industrial town that used to elect Socialist Mayors and out and out Marxists to the city council. You do not want to even drive through there at night...
Uh, make that GERMAN craftsmen! My Polish and Italian ancestors were not good at designing houses as the Germans were in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cincinatti, etc.
And let us not forget the outstanding sausage made in Milwaukee. Whenever I pass thru, my big cooler gets filled with homemade German sausage and rye rolls and Polish kielbasa and hot horseradish.
My grandpa (RIP) used to make his own Kielbasa with his father. Can you imagine that they built a smokehouse in their postage stamp sized yard in Newark, NJ?
Except that when Milwaukee and Bridgeport had Socialist Mayors, they were a lot safer and had far more efficient governments. The rodents that replaced them were all about incompetence, corruption, race-baiting, and pretty much everything that makes cities unliveable today.
I used to work with a guy who bought a beautiful house in Sherman Park for less than $30k. Seemed every couple of weeks his car was stolen.
When you tax the people who create jobs the hardest, they stop creating jobs.
True. The Bridgeport Socialists were more honest than the "family men" Democrats who ran New Haven and Hartford back in the day.
I'm a former Clevelander transplanted to Indianapolis.
Cleveland is much the same situation as Detroit and Milwaukee. You get a negative cycle of higher taxes, less jobs, more blight and crime, reduced population, reduced revenue, more taxes and repeat. Dennis Kucinich, the "boy mayor" is the guy who kicked off this disastrous trend. The fact that he keeps getting re-elected as a US Rep is solid proof of how few productive citizens remain in the area to vote.
In any area, when you get a high percentage of the voting population who pay no taxes, they have a big incentive to vote for more taxes in the mistaken belief it will improve services.
Indianapolis is now in the early stages of this cycle. Because it has a county rather than city based local government, the leadership stayed in good hands longer than most larger cities. However in the last 10 years as immigration and inner city population growth have increased, the county is now electing Democrats. So the big city cycle of spending, debt, taxes, and decline is starting to set in.
you are absolutely right. no new job creation, but the old jobs don't vaporize either. until Briggs and stratton closes down operations in MKE, or Miller Brewing transfers production somewhere else, or Harley moves production to another place...Midwest Airlines gets bought out by a lower taxed and therefore more profitable airline...etc. ad infinitum...
The Milwaukee socialists of the early 20th century were actually better in terms of representing the public need than were the Democrats and Republicans of the time -- both parties embraced corruption, greed and general incompetence on a level not seen since, well, todays City and State governments in Milwaukee and Wisconsin respectively.
Socialists build much of what made Milwaukee great - the public works; sewers, the water system, the parks and engineering of the infrastructure of the community. Neo-socialists have done the damage by focusing on social engineering rather than providing for public needs and safety.
A contrast between creating durable assets with public money (the old socialists) vs. viewing public money as disposable spending cash (todays Democrat-Socialists and entitlements.)
Posted a note to my Milwaukee neighborhood mailing list. The libs there are foaming in lockstep with McGee Sr. saying that Sykes deserved to be accused of killing his recently deceased mother because he talked on air about Michael J Fox when Fox was making the cynical “cure me” spots during the last election cycle.
McGee’s son is the alderman who in in the last week called on the black community to attack drivers with bricks and stones if they felt drivers were going too fast in residential neighborhoods.
It’s like Sharia without the devotion to any sort of spirituality or discipline regarding law — just the good stuff like stonings.
The reason “struggling peoples” moved to Milwaukee some time back was the super short residency requirement for government aid that was like old Velveeta to a bottom feeding carp. Half of Illinois’ Cook County went to Milwaukee for Milwaukee government manna.
Milwaukee is getting crushed under the weight of the “struggling people” now.
For years Milwaukee Public Schools (now more like gangbanger day care) graduated students at a rate around 50%. Sure some got out, but for many others, the only fulltime job they’re capable of is destroying the city or whining about the mess they’ve made. All while the politicians hold out hope of mythical high paying jobs to arrive for an uneducated and unmotivated workforce. They promise to bring manufacturing back, while ignoring the realities at hand - high taxes and no desire on the part of companies to pay $50,000 a year to high school drop outs.
Some serious cognitive dissonance going on.
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