Tools for Raising Hell in your own backyard = act locally

[merrill]

Knowledge = tools for holding local politicians accountable! Our own backyards have plenty of political corruption!

We have created in the United States, largely in the last thirty years, a whole series of programs — a few of them explicit, many of them deeply hidden — that take money from the pockets of the poor and the middle class and upper middle class and funnel it to the wealthiest people in America.

And among the biggest recipients of these subsidies are the wealthiest family America, the Waltons; George Steinbrenner; Donald Trump; a whole host of healthcare billionaires. And these are policies that either have not been reported on or the news reporting on them generally has not informed people about what they really are.


"Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)" "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)"

UUA: A Voice of Economic Populism
A Voice of Economic Populism

 

[Luddly Neddite]

This is actually a huge difference between us and them.

When "you" get your taxes done, you don't have a nice big accounting firm at your disposal that has been managing your money all year. Instead, Jan 31 comes and goes and many have no idea that their window of opportunity went with it.

For some reason, when people hear "taxes", they think only of income taxes while the 1% is making their big tax breaks on wealth, not income. They do not "invest locally". And, they hold on to their money.
http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201109190007

A show of hands please ... How many of you have accounts in off shore banks? invest in foreign companies? take your own businesses out of the US?

How many of you want the 1% to continue to have accounts in off shore banks, invest in foreign companies and take their businesses AND their money out of the US?

Yep. Just as I thought. No hands raised for the first question but lots of pub/bag hands raised for the second question.

Damn lemmings.

And, the worst is, they're taking us down with them.

 

[whitehall]

Why would you want to "raise hell" in your own backyard? I like my backyard just fine and I like my Country just fine. I may confront politicians with hard questions like any other Tea Party member but I have no intention of raising hell.

 

[zzzz]

Interesting read. I see in my locality some of the aspects of this story. From abatement's to TIF's the large companies are getting all kinds of tax breaks while the small locally owned businesses are left out in the cold. A super Wall mart comes in and downtown becomes a ghost town. In Indy when you come to the Super Bowl and you eat out a Colts tax was put into place to help subsidize the stadium for the Colts.

Government assistance is available to everyone, poor, or the rich and it is the ones who know how to play the game that succeeds. Except now that the pie is getting smaller someone has to lose their slice and who do you think is on the short end of that stick!

But here’s what happens. And this is a good example of where the news media hasn’t done a good job. I have tons of news clips that say, oh, this new shopping mall is coming or a new Wal-Mart or a new Cabela’s store, and thanks to tax increment financing, this store is going to be built. Well, what is tax increment financing? I’ll tell you what it is. You go to the store with your goods, you pay for it at Wal-Mart, and there’s a very good chance that that store has made a deal with the government that the sales taxes you are required to pay, that government requires you to pay, never go to the government. Instead, those sales taxes are kept by Wal-Mart and used to pay the cost of the store. And typically in those deals, the store is tax exempt, just like a church.
Now, there are two ways that it’s important to think about this. One is, that means your kid’s schools, your police department, your library, your parks are not getting that money. And you’ll notice we keep saying we’re starved for money. We’re twice as wealthy as we were in 1980, but we’ve got to close hospitals, and we’ve got to close schools, and we don’t have money for all sorts of things like after-school programs, even though we’re twice as wealthy. The second thing to think about is, imagine that you own Amy Goodman’s or Juan’s department store across the street. You suddenly have to compete with people whom the government is giving a huge leg up on. You think you would go broke after a while? Well, in fact, you will.
And I tell about a man named Jim Weaknecht who owned a little store in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. He sold fishing tackle, hunting gear, stuff like that. And the way he made his living in his little tiny store, enough that he was able to have his wife stay at home and raise their three kids full time, was by charging less than a company called Cabela’s. Well, then Cabela’s came to town. This little city of 4,000 people made a deal to give Cabela’s $36 million to build a store. That’s more than the city budget for that town for ten years. It’s $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in that town to have this store. And even though he charged lower prices, he was pretty quickly run out of business.
That’s not market capitalism, which is what Ronald Reagan said he was going to bring us. He said, you know, government’s the problem, we need markets as a solution. Well, that’s not the market. That’s corporate socialism. And what we’ve gotten is corporate socialism for the politically connected rich — not all the rich, the politically connected rich — and market capitalism for everybody else.

"Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)"

 

[Katzndogz]

Sorry, but that businessman has more right to my money if he produces goods or services I want, than La Tonya has a right to my money just cause she popped out 15 kids. If that businessman has to hide the money he made off me in an offshore account to avoid paying La Tonya to pop out more kids, more power to him.

We know that our fellow countrymen have become the enemy to be defeated, we just have a different idea of exactly which of our countrymen that enemy is.

 

[merrill]

"You go to the store with your goods, you pay for it at Wal-Mart, and there’s a very good chance that that store has made a deal with the government that the sales taxes you are required to pay, that government requires you to pay, never go to the government.

Instead, those sales taxes are kept by Wal-Mart and used to pay the cost of the store. And typically in those deals, the store is tax exempt, just like a church.

Now, there are two ways that it’s important to think about this. One is, that means your kid’s schools, your police department, your library, your parks are not getting that money. And you’ll notice we keep saying we’re starved for money."

We’re twice as wealthy as we were in 1980, but we’ve got to close hospitals, and we’ve got to close schools, and we don’t have money for all sorts of things like after-school programs, even though we’re twice as wealthy."

"Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)"
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Big box stores are tax dollar moochers at the expense of the majority of taxpayers. With the help of government officials of course. Then there is the secret sales tax epidemic going around so pay attention to receipts.

 

[merrill]

The fewer taxes the fewer pay the more somebody else will pay.

1. increased user fees such as water and sewer rates

2. increased swimming pool fees

3. increased property taxes

4. or maybe a simple increase in sales tax

5. or maybe all of the above

 

[merrill]

How can back door tax deals or tax dollar give aways to local wealthy developers be any different than pork barrel going to EXXON-Mobil?