IS IT TRUE FEBRUARY 1, 2017

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IS IT TRUE the saga of raising tax rate on the citizens of Evansville and Vanderburgh County is one of those sad things that happens when property values do not increase to go along with the general cost of living?…expenses tend to rise in the Midwest along with the rest of the country with the odd exception of housing?…that is why a flat percentage tax fuels the coffers of government in areas where housing values increase without needing to raise the rates?…over a ten year period of a moderate inflation on goods and services of say 2.5% leads to an overall cost of living or business operation of roughly 30%?…when the municipal employees are granted annual increases based on cost of living statistics, and the assets used to run a government increase the sobering truth is that a $300 Million budget in 2007 would naturally turn into a $390 Million budget in 2017?.

IS IT TRUE in a situation where incomes and properties are not going up for the bulk of the taxpayers the City or County will not see their tax revenues increase over the same period of time?…the result is a need to raise taxes collected by the 30% increase in operating expenses just to keep doing the same things?…the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County are both caught between a rock and a hard place due to the phenomena of rising prices in a stagnant economy?

IS IT TRUE in most situations where one is not getting any raises the correct action would be to cut back on consumption?…the City of Evansville in particular has not only kept up the spending, they have doubled down on fun and games under the irrational assumption that the fun and games would make the cash register ring?…the reality could not have been further from the truth?…with the combination of the Ford Center ($127 Million), the Doubletree Hotel ($21 Million), and the Indiana University Medical School ($57 Million), the trustees of the fair City of Evansville have borrowed over $205 Million that consume interest payments of over $10 Million per year?…not a one of these expensive baubles has come even close to paying for itself and the end is nowhere in sight?…all of this spending excludes bike paths, ball fields, penguin exhibits, and that shiny new home for a couple of jaguars all of which adds nearly another $50 Million to the party tab?…the future may well have been mortgaged to the fun and games obsession of the present?

IS IT TRUE the crime statistics for large American cities were just released and contrary to popular belief Chicago is not the murder capital of America?…that distinction goes to St. Louis where 59.6 people out of every 100,000 are murdered in any given year?…Chicago is a distant 8th place on the murder capital list?…some Indiana towns did make the list?…Indianapolis comes in at #21 with a murder rate of 17.6 per 100,000 while Fort Wayne debuts on the murder capital list at #24 at 16.5 out of 100,000?…little Evansville by the Ohio fares much better than any of them with a murder rate of 7.5 per 100,000?…the article went on to state that the driving force behind this crime spree in major US cities is the resurgence of heroin as the drug of choice for opiate users, many of whom are in the Midwest?…a couple of years ago Indiana had more prescriptions for opiates than it had people?…when the feds cracked down on the legal distribution of opiates, the heroin scourge that had been underground for many years came roaring back?…this is a tragedy that is just beginning to get traction so expect things in the mega cities to get worse before they get better?

IS IT TRUE a coffee shop in San Francisco now has a robot that will take your coffee order, prepare it for you, and put it into a cup for 40 cents less than Starbucks charges?…this innovation uses 30 year old robotic technology that was pioneered by the auto industry?…it was the excessive wage demands of people who think they deserve $15 per hour for pouring coffee in a cup that inspired this adaption of robotic technology?…someday soon the day of the barista will end due to yet another machine that does a better job for a better price than a human being?

IS IT TRUE that around 75 City of Evansville employees are being sued for unpaid medical bills?  …we hear that the City Controller had to find about $4 million dollars to pay towards past medical bills? …the City still owes many more million of dollars on unpaid medical bills?  …we wonder where the City Controller got the $4 million dollars to pay the past unpaid City employees medical bills?

IS IT TRUE we would like members of City Council to ask Finance Chairman Dan McGinn to give them a detailed recap concerning the real status of 2016 and 2017 unpaid employees medical bills?  …we also would like for him to explain where he going to get the money to make unpaid medical bills current?

FOOTNOTE: Todays “Readers Poll” question is: Do you feel that our elected officials should force the State to include Ivy Tech in the IU-Evansville Medical school project?

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Is it true when the legislature passed the property tax cap bill they also raised the sales tax from 6% to 7%? That 1% increase was designated to go to the counties to help offset the property tax caps. How much money does Vanderburgh county receive from that designated sales tax fund?

    • The counties also get the 1% food, beverage, and hotel tax.
      But we need to raise the “non-voter” hotel tax to take advantage of all of those out-of-town conventioneerz who will be filling the new downtown Double Tree. Just like Indy has done to us when we stay there.
      Of course the Dunn Hospitality Group will probably oppose that concept.

    • If Mayor Winnecke and City Controller Russ Lloyd would produce and publish a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the City of Evansville, like other Indiana mayors do for their cities, a lot of the public’s questions could be easily answered. It seems like such a simple solution that one has to wonder why it is not being done.

  4. “IS IT TRUE in a situation where incomes and properties are not going up for the bulk of the taxpayers the City or County will not see their tax revenues increase over the same period of time?…the result is a need to raise taxes collected by the 30% increase in operating expenses just to keep doing the same things?…the City of Evansville and Vanderburgh County are both caught between a rock and a hard place due to the phenomena of rising prices in a stagnant economy?” (CCO)

    * * * * * * * * * * *

    And therein lies the rub. When your OUTGO exceeds your INCOME, you DO NOT keep doing the same things! Intelligent people look for ways to cut costs. Only government thinks it can continually run deficits. I guess they can point to California and Illinois as proof that bankruptcy can exist for decades.

    • In the ongoing controversy over “sanctuary cities”, it was reported yesterday that the City of San Francisco receives annually over a billion dollars in federal funding!!! IMHO no city in this country should be receiving that amount of funding by the U.S. Taxpayers. No wonder California can continue to operate as a bankrupt entity!

  5. I was working in my vegetable garden removing the weeds one day. The garden abuts the university, and as it happens the university president walk by and paused long enough to tell me that weeds were plants too and had every right to thrive and survive. Not wanting to offend, I put away my tools and headed for the house. I continued to water the garden, but that was about all. Needless to say that in very little time the beautiful little vegetable garden was overrun with every type of weed, large and small, veining weeds, ground spreading weeds, all were strangling the plants and starving them of the nutrients they needed to exist. Some of the weeds were very toxic and if you touched them you paid a price. And to think, all these years that I removed them from my garden, what was I thinking?

    • Press:
      Some people are stupid though, and have very low intellect, and can’t tell the value of some things in their garden. They are total dumbasses. Here they are pulling these new plants they thought were weeds, and in fact, they were not weeds at all:

      1. Corn – import from Central America
      2. Potatoes – import from Peru
      3. Tomatoes – import from Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.

      • Don’t forget tobacco and cotton.
        And cocca (chocolate).
        Of course there’s that other import coca.
        And we shouldn’t forget that other weed, hemp.

    • Completely off-topic.

      But way to hate on people who work hard and got a degree. I’m sure that helps you sleep at night. Now go whine to Trump for more funding to save your low-skill job.

  6. Editor, re: the 75 City of Evansville employees being sued for unpaid medical claims:

    Is this the continued work of Deaconess Hospital, who the C&P reported last year had filed 20,000 lawsuits in 4 years (5,000 a year for 4 years) ? Of course, C&P didn’t report this from any investigation they did –their hand was forced when NPR and Pro Publica outed Deaconess Hospital.

    Deaconess is a cabal member, and it’s not PC to ever criticize them. I found it the height of hypocrisy that they would sponsor the new baseball fields and park in the name of “community health” . . . then sue 20,000 of the citizens they were ostensibly benefiting !!!

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