This morning the Evansville Redevelopment Commission voted 4 – 0 to approve the proposal to hand an out of town developer a $37.5 Million gift to build a Doubletree Hotel in downtown Evansville where the Executive Inn once stood. The total cost of the project will be $74 Million and include a hotel, supporting infrastructure, restaurant and retail space, a parking garage, and an apartment building. The ERC’s vote came only 72 hours after the Mayor announced his support for the project at a news conference in the empty lot next to the Ford Center.

Next up in the approval cycle is the Evansville City Council that will hear the first reading next Monday night. The second and third readings along with the vote on funding were set by the Mayor for September 9th. This gives the City Council 3 weeks to complete whatever vetting they deem as necessary before voting on whether or not to borrow $37.5 Million to donate to the developer.

It is also expected according to Mayor Winnecke that the County Commissioners will be refinancing the bonds for The Centre to contribute to the cause as well. No amount has been assigned for the County to contribute at this time but it has been stated that the funds will have to come from refinancing The Centre.

This is the fourth time a development agreement has been announced as approved by the ERC and comes over 5 years after former mayor Weinzapfel triumphantly announced that he had secured the commitment of Browning Investments to complete a 4-Star hotel without public support for $42 Million on the word that a downtown arena would be built? That deal and two later deals all fell apart for reasons from financing difficulties to inexperience in the lodging industry.

This ERC vote comes during a week when it was revealed that the Mesker Amphitheatre is dilapidating rapidly from lack of maintenance, the public pools were closed early to save $72,000, and a 76% sewer rate increase is being drafted for a September vote. The final vote on the sewer rate increase is being considered for a time after the vote on funding for the hotel is completed.

By: Mike Cannon

America has a two-party system. But it’s not Republicans versus Democrats. It’s the ruling class — Republicans and Democrats — against everyone else. Consider how President Obama just gave Congress its very own Obamacare waiver.

Obamacare includes a provision that should cost each member of Congress and each staffer $5,000 to $11,000 per year. Needless to say, the ruling class was not pleased.

Congress wasn’t about to try to exempt itself from this provision explicitly, though. If John Q. Congressman voted to give himself an Obamacare waiver that his constituents don’t get, he wouldn’t be John Q. Congressman much longer. What’s an aristocrat to do?

On July 30, I predicted that, even though he had no authority to do so, President Obama would waive that provision at taxpayers’ expense. On August 1, he ignobly obliged the aristocracy by decreeing we peasants give each member and staffer $5,000 or $11,000, depending on whether they want self-only or family coverage. It’s good to be king.
The president’s supporters, like courtesans of old, are trying to quell a peasant uprising by denying there were any special favors. The denials ring hollow.

Obamacare imposes two costs on members of Congress and their staff. First, it kicks them out of their current health plans, leaving them to buy coverage on Obamacare’s health-insurance “exchanges.” Second, it makes no provision for the federal government to keep paying $5,000 or $11,000 toward the cost of their insurance as the Treasury does today.

The second cost is by far the larger one; it amounts to a pay cut of $5,000 or $11,000. Many staffers were threatening to quit or retire early.

When the president’s supporters claim that Congress isn’t being exempted, they mean that Obama didn’t exempt them from Cost No. 1. Which is true. But he did exempt them from Cost No. 2.

Rescinding that pay cut may or may not have been the right thing to do. But it’s still a break that ordinary Americans like Kevin Pace don’t get. Pace is an adjunct music professor at Northern Virginia Community College. To avoid penalties under Obamacare, his employer cut his hours — sticking Pace with an $8,000 pay cut.

Supporters say President Obama merely held Congress harmless. Exactly. Kevin Pace and countless others like him aren’t being held harmless, because they’re not members of Congress. As Kevin Pace put it, “This isn’t right on any level.”

Things would be unseemly enough if Congress’s Obamacare waiver were legal. But experts say the president had no authority to grant it.

That didn’t stop even Republicans from praising him, however. Tin-eared Representative Chris Stewart (R., Utah) gushed: “There’s no question it was the right thing to do. Not just for me, but for my staff. Heavens, I have staff who don’t make much money. This would be a really big bite for them.”

Congressman, you also have constituents who don’t make much money, and who can’t make it appear out of thin air. Enjoy your waiver.

How was I able to predict the president would grant illegal subsidies to members of Congress? He’s a repeat offender.

Obamacare actually kicked members of Congress out of their current health plans and imposed that $5,000 to $11,000 pay cut immediately upon enactment in 2010. But President Obama just ignored that part of the law. He let members and staff stay in their current health plans and kept the taxpayer money flowing in their direction.

I predicted President Obama would give illegal health-insurance subsidies to members of Congress because he is already in his fourth year of doing it.

Pretty much all Americans can point to some part of Obamacare that they hate. Seniors hate the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which even Howard Dean calls “a health-care rationing body.”

Unions, teacher assistants, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and other school employees hate how the law is cutting their pay. Private-sector unions despise the “Cadillac tax” that forces them to fund subsidies their members don’t receive. Young adults hate the penalties for not buying health insurance. Okay, everybody hates those. In fact, a majority of Americans oppose the entire law.

But only Congress gets relief. Why?

Simple. President Obama doesn’t want Congress to reopen Obamacare. A significant share of congressional Democrats just voted to delay the individual mandate. With once-loyal Democrats now upset over how the law hurts them personally, who knows what else Congress would discard?

President Obama circumvented a potential legislative defeat by giving each member and staffer thousands of taxpayer dollars he had no authority to touch. He’s buying votes from members of Congress — with stolen money, no less.

Source: NRO