South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

2009

Sioux Falls

Gregg 'FREE MONEY' Jamison has another brilliant idea. More handouts to special interests.

l3wis 5Comments
.!.

We already know that special interests run city hall in Sioux Falls, and they have a few (most) councilor’s balls in a vice, but when I heard this idea at the economic forum, cheerled by councilor and developer Gregg Jamison, I thought it would go nowhere. Well guess again;

The idea – still in its infancy – would enact a broad, temporary tax abatement program in the city. In essence, the program would give builders an incentive to start projects now on the promise of lower property tax bills once they’re completed.

Here’s the deal. DEMAND drives commercial development. If businesses need more office space, contractors will figure it out and build more office space. What a concept? Huh?

The details of abatement programs vary, but they generally work something like this: Without an abatement, a developer who builds an office or apartment building would begin paying the full tax bill on the property once it’s completed. The property taxes on the same building built under an abatement program would be phased in.

So I am guessing this is similiar to the program I got when I bought my first home? Wait. That program does not exist you say? Well why not? Because the little man gets his taxes increased on bread and milk so the big man can have FREE MONEY from the city coffers.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Ve19tbxlQ[/youtube]

And of course, Gregg, SPECIAL INTERESTS, CITY LEAKING MONEY, AC/DC SHIRT WEARING, REAL PEOPLE DIE IN FLOODS, HANDOUTS NOT HAND UPS, WASHER AND DRYER IN EVERY ROOM, LISTENING TO DADDY’S TALKING POINTS, Jamison thinks it is a swell idea;

Vamp full

The idea originated in a community forum of local business leaders who were exploring options to help the economy and community. The forum was the idea of City Councilor Greg Jamison.

“I think any idea to help stimulate the economy is worth looking at,” Jamison said.

Wanna stimulate the economy? Bring high paying manufacturing and technical jobs to Sioux Falls. Have tax incentives for people buying homes in older neighborhoods that are willing to fix them up. Invest in the citizenry first, build the city from the bottom up, not the top down.

We know how Reagan’s ‘trickle down economics’ worked, we are climbing out of that hole right now. Sorry, Gregg, there is no such thing as FREE MONEY unless you are a dirt poor rancher in Winner, SD.

Moore

New Michael Moore Movie

l3wis 0Comments

moore_a4f19

Michael Moore wants his money back. Actually, he wants your money back, if you lost any in the financial meltdown.

And though he knows that probably won’t happen, the filmmaker at least wants to stick it to the people who took it.

The still untitled film, which opens Oct. 2, will zero in on the corporations and politicians he says caused the global financial crash.

Wall Street robber barons are Moore’s new on-screen enemy.

“The movie is not going to be an economics lesson; it’s going to be more like a vampire movie,” the filmmaker jokes. “Instead of the main characters feasting on the blood of their victims, they feast on the money. And they never seem to get enough of it.”

When the collapse walloped the country last September, Moore says he knew not only that it would matter to regular people, but also that the inherent decadence was ripe for his style of satire.

“If you go to see my movies, even if you don’t agree with everything in the movies, you’re going to have a good laugh,” Moore says. “I want them to walk out at the end saying ‘Wow, that was something!’ And in this case, maybe they also walk out asking the ushers, ‘Um, excuse me. Where are the pitchforks and torches?’ “

Thune

Thune; Still a Dink

l3wis 15Comments

thune-salmon

Is Ironic Johnny’s legislation idea a good one? Sure. Will it pass? Hell no. This is just another political game by the GOP’s whipping boy;

The federal government, which has amassed large ownership interests in private companies, would be forced to sell those interests by July 1, 2010, under a bill introduced Thursday by Sen. John Thune.

Thune said Thursday that the government’s equity stakes have made President Obama a “de facto CEO” and Congress a “board of directors.” The relationship between government and private industry, he said, has “created a dangerous conflict of interest.”

Blah, Blah, Blah, Fart, Fart Fart.

John, when are you going to start talking like an adult instead of a HS Cheerleader? Let’s talk ‘dangerous’ conflicts of interest. Like when we let Enron and the energy companies have a private meeting with Dick-Dick Cheney and right the Bush energy policy. Or when we let Haliburton and Blackwater run operations in Iraq. You are worried about ‘dangerous’ conflicts of interest now?

Thune voted for the $700 billion TARP program last fall, but he said the purpose of that program was to remove troubled assets from bank balance sheets, not to buy equity stakes in private companies.

Yeah, just like authorizing the President to go to war in Iraq, wouldn’t mean he would go to war in Iraq. How did that turn out?

Thune’s bill will be popular with the Republican Party base, said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. But with their depleted numbers in the Senate, Sabato thinks the bill has little chance of passing.

 

“The Democrats aren’t going to permit Thune and the Republicans to tie Obama’s hands in that way,”

Thune. Go do something constructive, like retire.

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