Emma Berry

Posts Tagged ‘local government’

The larger percentage of local governments across the USA and the federal government in Washington are headed up by the wealthy of our nation–those who have personal gross  income in excess of $166,000 per year. And in Washington the wealth factor goes even higher.  In our Congress we have 263 multimillionaires–almost half.  If our Congress were truly representative to the people that it is supposed to serve, this percentage, instead of consisting of about 48% of multimillionaires, would be at 1% or 2%.  Yes that is correct, if our Congress were representative of the people, we would have one or two multimillionaires which would be representative of our population and not    263.  As for the rest of them, they all range in income from the upper 2% down to the upper 5%.

So our Congress is representative of about 5% of Americans.

These people are totally out of touch, and furthermore don’t give a damn, regarding the MAJORITY of Americans and how we live.   They really don’t get it because they are doing just fine.  America, as it has become today,  works for the rich, the upper 5%–just not the other 95%.

THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING DECISIONS FOR THE REST OF US!  IT IS ABSURD! WE DO NOT HAVE A DEMOCRACY.  WE HAVE AN OLIGARCHY OF THE RICH.

***************************************************************

Local governments are not any better. Look at the recent decisions made, for example by the local city council of Plano Texas.  In November of 2009 they paid $2.1 of taxpayer money  in incentives  (extortion) to Pizza Hut to move their headquarters from Addison Texas (a few miles away) to Plano. I believe that one of their council members referred to is as a “jewel” in their crown.  Perfect analogy from a “royal” ruler. Sometimes I think that some of the people heading up our governments treat act as if they are in some fraternity or sorority vying for prizes during Greek week instead of actually representing citizens.  Citizens of Plano who do not belong to the upper 5% club will be paying in the form of higher property taxes.  Yes the City of Plano had to raise property taxes for the second or third time in as many years.  Do you wonder why?

If you do, I can give you another reason:  Just this week they allocated $7.5 million dollars for improvement of their public golf course!  What percentage of citizens in Plano do you think play golf?  I would venture to guess that at the very most it would amount to one or two percent.  Nowhere near the majority will benefit from this expenditure–yet all of the property owners will be paying for it in the form of higher taxes.  This is the same council who told their black community that they could not afford $500,000 for a black community center because as one council member smugly put it:  “They represent the whole community and not just a neighborhood.”  Ironically, he was the only black member of their city council.

As for bringing the headquarters of Pizza Hut to Plano.  This might have been worth it if Pizza Hut had been located in another state, but in an adjoining city within the same urban area?  Please.  How many people do you think moved to Plano from Addison?  How many people do you think now shop in a grocery store in Plano who once shopped in Addison?  That move was little more than an ego trip for the city council that raised property taxes for the citizens of that community.

And Plano is not that different from all the other local governments across the USA and all the local governments across the USA are not that different from Washington.  They are all ruled from the perspective of the rich.  Someone needs to tell these people that they are not the majority.

YES THIS IS A CLASS WAR AND YOU ARE WRONG (OR RICH) IF YOU SAY OTHERWISE.

I just read in the Collin County Observer where property taxes were increasing in Frisco, Texas.

Just last week I read that property taxes  were increasing in Plano for second time in as many years.

**********************************************************************

What I want to know is when are citizens going to wise up and get the connection between the high property taxes that they pay and their “conservative” local government and local Chamber of Commerce’s tax give-aways to Wall Street Corporations to make their communities more attractive to what amounts to a Wall Street fleece.  Talk about a “shake-down”, Joe Barton would serve his constituents better if he pointed out real instead fake shakedowns.

IT IS TIME FOR WALL STREET CORPORATIONS TO START PAYING THEIR OWN WAY IN TERMS OF TAXES IN THE COMMUNITIES WHERE THEY ARE LOCATED.

When someone gets a free ride, the taxpayers are the ones who make up the difference.

The biggest “entitlement” programs that we have going today in the USA are the Wall Street entitlement programs that serve rich Wall Street investors–many of whom are not even citizens of our nation.

IT’S TIME FOR THE PEOPLE TO TAKE BACK THEIR  LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND REPLACE THEM WITH PEOPLE WHO WILL TAKE BACK THE TAX GIFTS TO WALL STREET CORPORATIONS.

Why should Wall Street pay no taxes and citizens be required to make up the difference?

YOU WANT TO KNOW ONE OF THE REWARDS FOR MAKING SUCH SACRIFICES TO CORPORATIONS?

Count the number of ozone orange air pollution alert days–that’s the thanks we get we get here in Texas.  Count the number of Texans who died in the BP Texas Refinery explosion or the 170 who were injured because investor profits came before worker safety.

Count the $161 million dollars that Rick Perry  has taken from unemployment insurance paid by Texas workers for his “Texas Enterprise Fund” and forked over to large Wall Street corporations since 2006 for “job creations” that never materialized.  That’s the thanks we get.

Local government leadership need to start representing the citizens of their communities by establishing locally owned corporations that make goods and provide services that are consumed locally.  Such corporations could be formed as local cooperatives owned by people who live in the area.  Shares in the company would not be sold to people living outside the community and when a citizen moves, they would be required to sell their shares.  Such corporations would stabilize local economies and make them less vulnerable to outside influences.  Corporations that supplied goods and services that meet basic needs such as food and clothing would provide the most economic security for the community.  This is not to exclude outside businesses in the community, but it would reduce the need for leaders of local governments to bend over and drop their pants in order to attract a polluting, non-tax paying Wall Street leech.  To say no is not “isolationism”.  This is protection of the citizens of a community who have been fleeced long enough by the actions of so called “conservatives.”

BUT OF COURSE, IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO HAVE YOUR PROPERTY TAXES RAISED, THEN YOU GO AHEAD AND CLING TO THE “CONSERVATIVE” CLICHES. I think it is time that Americans pull the wool out of their eyes and see exactly how they have been hoodwinked.

At what point do our local Governments stop treating Wall Street Polluters as if they have a right to destroy the environment and force people to work for slave wages?

Perhaps we should say no when we can no longer even go to our beaches, lake shores and river banks, much less swim in the water that has been polluted by industrial discharge and oil spills.

Perhaps we should say no when  the majority of all animal species have become extinct because of industrial pollution.

Perhaps we should say no, you can’t have a free ride  when we realize that there may not be another generation because slave wages paid by Wall Street corporations, combined with the high prices for food are not sufficient to sustain life.  We already see evidences of this all over the world and the USA is no exception.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that in 2008:

• Of the 49.1 million people living in food insecure households (up from 36.2 million in 2007), 32.4 million are adults (14.4 percent of all adults) and 16.7 million are children (22.5 percent of all children).
• 17.3 million people lived in households that were considered to have “very low food security,” a USDA term (previously denominated “food insecure with hunger”) that means one or more people in the household were hungry over the course of the year because of the inability to afford enough food. This was up from 11.9 million in 2007 and 8.5 million in 2000.

If there is to be change in the stranglehold that Wall Street has on America,  it will have to begin with people in  local governments and local Chamber of Commerce’s who stop making any kind of a deal with Wall Street corporations to attract Wall Street business to their communities.

It is absolutely ridiculous.  In Plano Texas, for example, their local government raised property taxes in 2006 to the extent that people owning a home valued at $244,000 were paying an extra $40 a year.  And what did the local government do with this added revenue?  They did things like give a cash incentive of $1.2 million to Pizza hut to move its corporate headquarters to Plano on a tax free piece of property.  ABSURD!  The people who most benefitted from this were not the local people in Plano but the global investors of Pizza Hut.

In Texas, we see this at a state level with our governor who is willing to allow industry to pollute our air and our water.

This faulty logic of an “either/or” mentality must end if we are sustain life on our planet. We have been hoodwinked for years by special interests into thinking that either they must have their way and be allowed to pollute and take unnecessary risks with worker safety and all without paying their fair share of taxes or they won’t bring their business to town.  We must have local leaders who have the courage and insight to say no.  No it is YOU who must be responsible and pay your taxes to the community that you use.  It is YOU who must reduce YOUR profits.  It is YOU who must not put our community at risk for your profits.

OTHERWISE, we will use our tax dollars to create community corporations.  Every community in America should have at least two community corporations that are owned by shareholders who live in the community.  This is the only way to stabilize local economies.  Wall Street corporations do not own their alliance to the communities that they pollute.  They owe their alliance to their global shareholders.

If local communities don’t start making them behave–no one will.

DEMAND THAT YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT STOP HANDING OVER YOUR COMMUNITY TO WALL STREET.

Another area where local communities are vulnerable is with food security.  To the extent possible, all food consumed locally should be grown locally and/or in the nearby region.