I LOVE this song;
I just replace ‘Winnipeg’ with ‘Sioux Falls’ and it makes soooo much sense. The last line in the song nails it;
And up above us all, leaning into sky
A golden business boy will watch the North End die
And sing I love this town
Then let his arcing wrecking ball proclaimI hate Winnipeg (Sioux Falls)
So a foot soldier who actually reads regional news sent me this article about TIFs. Talking points are always the same and I encourage you to read the entire piece;
Politically, TIF is seductive. It allows elected officials to claim they are “doing something” about development without raising taxes today. The costs are deferred, opaque and spread across future taxpayers. But the long-term consequences are real: higher property taxes, underfunded schools, distorted development patterns and growing dependence on subsidies for projects that should stand on their own.
Pretty common sense stuff. Right? And the folks who wrote this article are not a couple of jokesters;
Julie Risser is an Edina City Council member. She previously served on Edina’s Planning Commission and Energy and Environment Commission. David Schultz is Hamline University Distinguished Professor of Political Science. Previously he served as a city director of planning, zoning and code enforcement and also as a housing and economic planner.
I have read hundreds of articles over the past decade about the destructive nature of TIF’s and have never understood why local governments get sucked in, besides the fact they are getting their personal palms greased, but I have never heard the word ‘SEDUCTIVE’ used. It makes SOOO much sense now. Not only are our national politics ruled by money and power (The taxpayers of this country just paid for a military operation to take the oil resources of an independent nation, wrap your F’ing head around that!!!) but now our local politics are now too. I think the upcoming city election is an opportunity for citizens to stand up this money machine and elect folks who won’t tolerate it any more. Don’t be ‘seduced’ by snake oil salespeople.
MY HOPES FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION (Mayoral)
Somebody asked me last night what would be my ideal outcome of the next city election, and I gave a longer answer then I expected;
Greg Jamison as mayor, Christine Erickson as Public Information Officer, Joe Batcheller as his Planning Director and Jamie Smith as his Housing and Community Development director AND I would hire a trained monkey to be the city attorney. Notice I said ‘trained’.
Sioux Falls could use a theme song. Something where you don’t have to stand at attention and salute. When there’s a mayor who doesn’t succumb to developers enriching himself with public money to build a private tennis club. So much debt yet there’s a billion dollar budget. No more event centers. Homeless help. It’s not right when citizens work several jobs but hardly survive. The city needs infrastructure. There’s no east-west thorofare. Bus service doesn’t reach to social services on the east side. Greg Jamison would be a good mayor. It’s such a mess, he’s smart enough to not run.
But an attorney not trained by a crunchy Fiddle Faddle.
“….(The taxpayers of this country just paid for a military operation to take the oil resources of an independent nation, wrap your F’ing head around that!!!) …..”
That’s the narrative some are saying, while others claim Maduro and drug trafficking, but the real underlying issue, I think, which is where the parallel to Noriega and Panama is the strongest, is that this is not about socialism, oil, or drugs into the United States, but rather about who will control the drug trafficking and who will profit from it. One only has to look at Trumps 180 on crypto to know that everything Trump does, he does for himself and to profit from it. What happened in Venezueal yesterday was a classic mobster shakedown and about who would control and profit from the neighborhood with oi, socialism, and trafficking concerns being the cover. But as you delve into the dark elements of our intelligence community, and some of their rogue funding, it will be interesting to see how this fares against Trump’s own ambitions.
Because, after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was so upset with the CIA that he claimed he wanted to tear up the CIA into a thousand pieces, then less than 3 years later he was dead, and dead at the hands of some rogue members of our intelligent community, anti-Castro Cubans, and mobsters with prior casino interests in Havana, many believe. In fact, the most recent of Kennedy Assassination files declassified from the CIA proved that Oswald was monitored by the CIA going back to 1959 and he was under a monitoring program designed to establish recruits for CIA operative interests. and a program, that at the time, was run by CIA operative, James Angleton. So, I guess what I’m really saying here is that chapter two of the Americanization of Venezuela will have more to it, then meets the eye, and it will be interesting to see – in my estimation or opinion – as to how Trump survives those waters.
https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/historical-cia-involvement-drug-cartels-latin-america-f5509e
AND, I forgot to mention, that if you think my aforementioned comments are far fetched, then you need to realize that my theory, suggestion, or whatever, is the only reasoning that potentially explains why Trump last month pardoned former Honduran President Hernandez, who was a known drug trafficker (I though Trump was against drug trafficking?), while Trump was also on the phone with Maduro during that same time frame… You know, it’s what the ‘Art of the Deal’ author, and most, might call potential quid pro quo….
I might also mention that the one thing that is different with Noriega versus Marduro is that Bush41, in his capture of Noriega, was tight with the CIA. In fact, Bush had once been the CIA Director under Ford(1976), and although Bush claimed publicly that his dealings with the CIA begin there, that for some strange reason the boats used during the Bay of Pigs Operation(1961) had the code names of “Barbara,” “Houston,” and “Zapata,” which just so happened to be the names of Bush41’s wife, Bush41’s hometown political base, and the name of his oil company, but I’ll leave the rest of that to your imagination. But when it comes to Trump and Maduro, well, Trump appears to be a third-party interest to the current operation, especially when you consider how often Trump has publicly chided and questioned the intelligence of our intelligence community and Trump himself appears to have had no prior dealings with the intelligence community prior to becoming president, which makes me think that Trump does not really understand what he is dealing with when he deals with Latin America, drugs, and the U.S. intelligence community. In fact, Trump has a history of not knowing a lot about our history as nation, especially if you recall his struggle to understand the Triad Defense discussion during an August, 2015 Republican presidential debate, or how he appeared to be astonished to learn that Lincoln was a Republican, and I also recently read that a gathering at the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, Trump was apparently asking many questions which showed a clear naivete on his part about Pearl Harbor and December 7th. So, from that pretext, I believe with what Trump has done to Maduro, and what I allege to be the real motive, then work together to make the waters for Trump very murky in the future in a way that he does not fully understand.
VSG, Not quite sure how your venting and rambling about past Military operations has anything to do with the improper use of TIF’S in Sioux Falls development. They certainly do not benefit the working class citizens. But hey, you obviously must feel better after hammering out that essay.
And finally, finally, why did Trump keep the current regime in Venezeula intact, absent Maduro? Well, when mob bosses take out other bosses they never seem to destroy the entire wing of that fallen mobster, rather they just take control of a greater network at the expense of the fallen boss. So, with the current Venezuelan regime still in power, then how has its illegal drug trafficking really been curtailed?…. Or, as Trump himself said on Saturday: “I’m running Venezuela now” …… 🙂
Steve,
If you noticed. My comments are based on what was mentioned in this initial post, with a reference to Trump and Venezuela, that’s why. I also think it is very dangerous for the left to stick with just the oil argument or to allow the right to just talk about drug trafficking when it comes to Venezuela, Trump, and Maduro. Trust me, Trump is a much bigger problem than TIFS, and if you don’t care for my comments, that’s fine. It’s still kind of a free country, so just ignore my rants, but thanks for reading them in the meantime 🙂
#NotGreg