MAYBE WE SHOULD FLY THIS BEHIND A FECKIN’ AIRPLANE.
August 22nd, 2007
I’m sure that Roldo Bartimole has the numbers tucked away, but I’d love to see a side-by-side comparison of all the corporate welfare checks written by Cleveland and Cuyahoga County since 1980 with other major municipalities and counties across the nation. Why do I think this is a list where Cleveland will be on top?
Since Mayor George Voinovich opened the public feeding trough the broken promises of jobs and economic recovery have piled higher and higher.
Like the loads of shit they are.
From this morning’s USAToday (don’t ever look for this kind of coverage in the Pee Dee):
Generous tax breaks given to companies that threaten to take their business elsewhere are coming under increasing scrutiny from state and local officials who say taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth.
Critics say the tax breaks and other financial incentives have gotten out of hand, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and doing little for the economy.
“There’s an entitlement mentality about tax breaks today,” Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Mark Funkhouser says. “Every developer thinks it’s his right not to pay property taxes.” Funkhouser was elected mayor in May after campaigning against tax breaks to developers, including one for a luxury condo development in an affluent part of his city.
I love that phrase entitlement mentality. Sounds like Mayor Funkhouser is talking about Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens or the Downtown Cleveland Alliance’s panhandlers. But he’s not. Mayor Funkhouser is talking about the parasitic class of leeches that passes for visionary leadership in Cuyahoga County.
You know, like the people who want yet another public-funding boondoggle to pay money into the county’s general fund with the will-o-wisp intent of building a convention center?
What would I have trailing behind an airplane in the sky above Cleveland? How about:
Taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth.
Are you really, really sure you couldn’t find a porkier picture of Jimmy Duh Moron? Keep this up, and we won’t be invited to be in the next Leadership Cleveland class. They’ll send us to anger management instead.
Shalom Tim,
If Jimmy isn’t the living personification of Boss Tweed, I don’t know who is.
B’shalom,
Jeff