Posted on 09/21/2014 2:24:32 PM PDT by walford
DETROIT – 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.
Detroit-in-ruins-15“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.
I want to live long enough to hear my democrat friends and family admit that OBAMA was a great big mistake. ...but like you said they never admit they are wrong...
It is a crime against the state to be white and live in a suburb. Send them all to re-education camps!
Ping.
Kwame Kilpatrick and his fellow travelers are responsible for the condition of Detroit.
GALL: Robert Reich, Who Makes $242,613 Teaching ONE CLASS, Criticizes OTHER Rich People
Net worth $4 million. I bet he lives in a white neighborhood, too.
The headline is hilarious. Blame the next county over for their problems.
They create the deplorable condition expecting white flight due to crime, rape, murder, drugs, and gang activities and then they blame them for this condition because they refuse to live in the sh##hole they created yet they live a good life on the taxpayers dole. Clintons labor secretary is just one more finger pointer from his or her glass house pointing the finger in our direction.
What a nasty little race baiter! For him to look at the cultural decline of black Americans and their attitude to a country where they are free to choose their own path in life and not see the damage liberal policy has done to so many people is deplorable.
Bastard. The normal people are trying to get away from the crime that you leftists are responsible for.
Detroit’s problems were, “Made In Detroit”. Pour some more gas on the fire, outsider Reichstag. If and when Detroit has a recovery it will be, “Made In Detroit”.
The opening shot in the war against White Flight: you cant escape us, wherever you go, we will send the thugs to extort you.
And if your neighborhood is deemed “undiverse”, then non- whites will be forcibly re-settled to reflect some bureaucratic quota.
Reich is a venal little prick who tries to get over by finger pointing.
Of course Third Grade Reich is right. If all the honkies in Detroit had just stayed put and allowed themselves to be rolled, Detroit wouldn’t be in such terrible shape. < / sarcasm >
The purpose of Section 8 housing is to import Democrat voters into Republican enclaves and overwhelm the Republican vote.
Maybe Reich will move to center city war zone Detroit to help
the problem.
However, something tells me he will pass on setting an example.
A big thank you goes out to that Demagogic Party racist jackass. And the Oompa-Loompa just handed us the reelection of the governor, and Land into the Senate.
The only fault that belongs to republicans are those republicans who kept kicking the can down the road.
I’ve got plenty of problems with Rick Snyder but he did force Detroit into bankruptcy when it should have happened years ago.
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