Posted on 11/09/2008 10:15:00 AM PST by NormsRevenge
THE local returns from Tuesday's election made one thing quite clear:
Angelenos are generous when it comes to schools.
So generous, in fact, that they have just agreed to continue to encumber themselves and their neighbors with hefty property taxes for decades to come.
In fact, it was a little bit astonishing that voters in Los Angeles overwhelmingly passed the fifth building bond for LAUSD in the past decade - at $7 billion, the largest yet.
It didn't even seem to matter that school officials hadn't made any real effort to make a plan to use the money.
They knew they could count on the voters' general support of schools to be stirred up by $700,000 worth of campaigning, paid for mostly by the people who will get this money - school builders.
Angelenos were nearly as enthusiastic when voting for a second bond of $3.5 billion for Los Angeles community colleges.
In this case, it made a little more sense.
Officials at the Los Angeles Community College District have a specific plan to use this money, down to the buildings and timelines.
It's no surprise that the massive taxes passed on Tuesday.
There was virtually no organized opposition to the four local tax measures.
Only mayoral candidate and L.A. activist Walter Moore launched any real opposition, and he could never hope to get the money that developers sank into the school bond campaigns.
And harried voters, faced with extra-full ballots, were hit with manipulative mailers that characterized this as a safe-school measure.
Add in a local sales tax increase for transportation projects, and one might say that voters were overly generous.
Party on!
You can say that the illegals are gonna have some pretty nice schools to attend.
And an additional 1.5% sales tax, does this bring the ST up to 10.5$?
That's one thing that stinks about living out west. At least here I can stop in Delaware on my way to my mom's or in-laws when I visit and "stock up" on expensive things and pay no sales tax.
You can say that in addition to being "generous," L.A. voters are either stupid or too intellectually lazy to figure out what they're voting for. Sadly, most of the people who favor this crap don't own any tasable property and they're too stupid to realize they'll pay higher taxes anyhow via increased rents.
I think this has something to do with the "cargo cult" mentality that seems to permeate Latin economic thought.
The place is populated with illiterate lemmings who are allowed to vote. When the mayors of Pocatello and Chubbuck tried to foist a $40 million bond on the property tax payers, the citizens revolted. It was placed on he ballot and received no votes of 71% in one city and 83% in the other. The citizens refused to encumber their properties to pay for a facility that offered no value to their residential property. The only beneficiaries were the banks (construction loans), builders (big building contracts), hotels and restaurants (from a minor increase in visitors to events at the arena). A small number of school events are held in the facility. The school district (via tax payer money) already pays for these events.
The builders and bankers ran a well funded campaign that they tried to hide behind the name of some benevolent sounding community organization. The names of the backers were ferreted out and widely publicized. The citizens recognized the fleecing that was intended. They said no.
I offer a counter example. The Buck knife company was founded in Idaho. It moved to El Cajon, CA were the company did well until electricity costs and disability insurance made the place too expensive to remain. The company has returned to Idaho in Post Falls.
I expect lots of cherry picking of good businesses to continue as California makes the business environment comparatively uncompetitive.
These local tax issues are pushed by an unholy alliance of big labor, rat politicians, and select big businesses. The businesses often receive no bid contracts. Big labor gets favorable treatment on work. Politicians get lots of campaign cash. Unfortunately there is little organized opposition to most local tax grabs. The unholy alliance is a key factor in rat takeover in previously conservative states like Colorado.
However, there may be some small hope in the battle against this unholy alliance. Colorado passed an amendment to restrict lobbying by business and labor groups that will benefit from tax proposals. This amendment passed despite $30M spent by labor to defeat it. Hopefully our leftist state supreme court will not overturn the will of the voters.
Indeed. The renter class in Pocatello/Chubbuck was chortling about how the property owners were going to get hit with the additional cost of funding the arena work. Property owners uniformly informed tenants that rents would be going up immediately if the bond measure passed. The message got through. That's a another reason for high turnout and an overwhelming no vote.
I hate bonds. There is way too much money spent on the failed public school system. The amount spent on adminstration, pensions, conferances at nice places, perks, health care, etc. is insane. It will have to crash. Raise taxes and make it crash faster.
I have no desire to see taxes raised. I'll do battle at city council meetings and school board meetings to keep those clowns in check. If you just sit back and watch, you're assured of being screwed.
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” — H.L. Mencken
Getting more expensive to deliver those anchor babies, ain’t it!
(everything free in A-mer- ee-ka)
The tax is supposed to generate money to fix the roads but those of us who voted against it seriously doubt that. It will be grabbed for other liberal feel good programs the left always wants.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.