IS IT TRUE JANUARY 2, 2018

1. Illinois doesn’t have a fiscal crisis; the State of Chicago has a fiscal crisis. Nothing exists outside of Chicago, right?

2. Really strange that city decided we needed more parking on N. Main. Did they ask anyone that knew?

3. Great start to 2018 with a dynamite “Is It True”. It is true Evansville DMD is out of control.

   • The 16 million dollar shopping cart path fiasco on North Main is Exhibit #1 in political mismanagement. Lipstick on a pig and built too narrow. Dumb and dumber is the Evansville DMD.

4. Fiscal responsibility? Warning against running government based on political patronage?

   Where were you todays column writer when the so-called Tax Bill was passed? It increases the taxes on all of America in order to fund a tax cut for the high income earners. They’re tax cut? From it dropped 14%. No one else got a tax cut.

   That is political patronage at its best. Poppycock column. No standards. You’re living in denial and lying with this column.

   • Typical dem ill-informed claptrap. Same old stuck record.

     • And you are a right-wing shill just like the hatchet-faced lunatic you think is clever for your screen name. And I know that the majority of this will be over your head and your reading comprehension, but try and keep up

       Start with how the bill is paid for. It isn’t. These are deficit-financed tax cuts. Republicans are leaving around $1.5 TRILLION on the national credit card over the first 10 years. Even dynamic estimates show massive revenue losses from the plan.

       In addition, thanks to the eight years of President Obama rescuing America from the meltdown that Bush left the US, the economy is growing and unemployment is low. This is the time to retire debt, so when the next recession comes, the US has the financial firepower to fight it. It is magnificently dumb to add more than a trillion dollars in debt to pay for corporate tax cuts when interest rates will certainly be higher when certain provisions for anyone other than the wealthy 1% run out in 8 years. If these cuts are a good idea, then they are a good idea worth paying for now.

       And NO, the tax cuts will NOT pay for themselves.

       The bill created giant new loopholes for tax accountants to exploit. The bill was thick with obvious loopholes that will do little for the economy. Loopholes are everywhere, and there are many we don’t know about yet because tax lawyers haven’t found them yet. But they will.

       And it’s worth noting that Republicans tweaked the pass-through language, in ways that seem designed to personally benefit President Trump. Why is that? (and try and answer without the typical republican ill-informed claptrap playing the same old stuck record)

       The irony is there are few government agencies Republicans trust less than the IRS, but for this legislation to work, the IRS will have to be inhumanly omnicompetent at detecting tax fraud.

       Dozens of the tax bill’s most important provisions are set to expire a few years after passage. The individual tax rate cuts, the expanded child deduction and the doubling of the standard deduction.

       The corporate tax cuts, meanwhile, are permanent. Let me say it again: CORPORATE TAX CUTS ARE PERMANENT

       This wrongly named “tax reform” sets up future fiscal crises for no other reason than that Republicans were too craven to pay for the tax cuts they want to pass at the time they want to pass them.

       The bill supercharges inequality. According to the Tax Policy Center, by 2027 more than 75 percent of the tax cuts’ benefits will accrue to the top 5 percent of the income distribution, with more than 60 percent of the total gains going to the top 1 percent.

       It also made the bill a betrayal of the GOP and the White House’s promises that “tax reform” will not be a tax cut for a rich. This plan is a giant tax cut for the rich.

       The moronic Republicans in Congress could have programmed a corporate tax cut plus a really attractive middle-class tax cut. Instead, they simply passed legislation for themselves, Trump, and the wealthy, and sent a huge STFU to the rest of America.

       • You are right Michael. Your rantings flew right over my head. But I am happy to see your sudden concern for government debt; after Barack H. Obama added almost $10,000,000,000,000.

   • It has been well documented that the new tax bill will decreased taxation for 91% of all taxpayers. Even Bernie Sanders has admitted that truth. It is also projected to increase the deficit by $1.5 Trillion over the next 10 years. That is on top of an existing $20.5 Trillion debt. To put that into layman’s terms it is like adding $75 per year to an existing $10,000 debt. That will not break the bank and anyone who understands money management knows it. The uncertainties are interest rates and growth. If the growth continues at about 3%, the economy will be okay. Things are in place to support that.

     You can act surprised when this tax cut is accepted as positive over the next year by working people of all levels of income. Several companies have already announced $1,000 bonuses for their rank and file. Of course those who were not paying any taxes are coming to grips with the fact that a 10% cut on zero is still zero.

     • Joe – The benefits you are so fast to jump on and trumpet? (and defend w/ bad, blurry stats that are propaganda, i.e., “we hope that will happen, or at least hope that you believe it when we say it.”

       Those benefits you say the 91% will enjoy? They all will expire. That’s right. The bill says its quite plainly. They expire.

       Trump said he was working for the working man. He is not. He is working for the Business Owners, and Pass Through Income earners, people who got the permanent cut in taxes of 14%. This is not a liberal thing. It is a conservative thing, to want your taxes lowered.

       But do the 14% tax cuts expire? No. No they do not.

       This idea that the Tax Bill was a tax cut for American working people and middle class homeowners? The idea that Coal Miners are gonna get jobs, and thats a big if, but IF they do, their taxes are going up. Period. The tax bill did not cut taxes for the working man. This idea that it is? That is total, total bullshit.

       Why do you think everyone is scrambling to pay property taxes for 2018 during the 2017 Year? Cause their deductions are vanishing, and their taxes are going UP.

       Ignorant people like DannCoulter know this, even if they try to paint some image a guy who dislikes his taxes going up is a flaming liberal. Lowering taxes, and wanting tax relief is a Republican priority, DannCoulter, and you are a snake sliding on the ground mister.

     • agree Joe…growth will without a doubt hit at least 4% and beyond in the next yr alone….. ……..cut spending $75 or $150 per 10,000…………….MAGA TRUMP Loves America……… Trump didn’t need the office to make money MAGA ran for the American worker……..Joe……california sanctuary state for the reason of votes only is a disgrace…………how long before california gives free taxpayer money to illiegals to buy pot??????????????? along with their ebt cards …………

5. Illinois will probably legalize recreational pot to help with its deficit. Off topic but I was sorry to see a shooting murder not 24 hours into the new year.

   • That one puts Evansville at #4 (up from #5) on the murder capital list during the last 3 months and one day. St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit are still ahead of Evansville. Three more days like yesterday and Evansville will catch those rat holes.

6. True. I wonder if the director of Evansville DMD (chief protagonist for said bike/shopping cart path) would tell us how much the Jacobsville TIF has raised to date in order to make payments on it.

7. Funny how easily neo cons drink the GOP Kool-Aid about “Fake Tax Cuts. People like myself will benefit from those reductions in our top rates, but I have read a fair amount about this bill, and frankly, those of you who think that “trickle down” will work “this time” are candidates to have Lucy from Charlie Brown hold your footballs.

   What Mr. Lockard says is correct-The meager tax reductions for the middle and lower income earners are TEMPORARY, whereas the tax cuts to corporations and those of us with Trust Accounts and accountants will be more long lasting.

   And those of you so called fiscal conservatives, especially you older ones on Social Security and either Medicare or medicaid, be prepared to spend any “tax cut” you get in increased costs as those same GOP leaders are targeting those 3 programs for gutting in order to “pay” for the rich man’s tax give away. And no, those programs are NOT entitlements-contrary to the lies Speaker Ryan states. Social Security and Medicare are insurance programs that we, the tax payers, have paid into and now demand our returns when we use them. Medicaid is the cheaper and better option than letting people die for being poor.

   As to why states like Illinois are having to raise taxes now -it is simple- legislators (like those in Indiana also) didn’t have the cajones to PAY for the contracts they agreed to and signed with their public employees. Like Congress, they kicked the problem “down the road”, except the end of that road is fast approaching. If elected officials were held accountable for ALL their actions, lies and and spending on campaigns, perhaps they would be more circumspect when it comes to spending money and creating programs. Or at least they wouldn’t create them without telling the truth about how they will be paid for.

8. The North Main St looks great. I’m sure this will be great for businesses along Main St. The Adult book Store and the strip club business should increase.
   The city annexed some of the new area on the east side. Several homes are valued over a half million dollars. The city has not come through with the promises went the area was annexed. No street lights. No sidewalks. The roadways are either been patched up or not fixed.
   Why don’t the taxpayers on the Eastside have new roadways,new sidewalks and street lights?

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