$113 MILLION IN SALES TAXES SLAM COUNTY TAXPAYERS

Submitted by Roldo on Fri, 11/07/2008 - 10:28.

We don’t have a medical mart or a new convention center but we’re paying top dollar for it anyway.

The quarter-percent sales tax passed by Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora without a public vote now totals $35,233,319.51 as of the end of October, according to County Auditor’s records.

So that’s just $35 million hanging around in the Hagan-Dimora kitty fund. No wonder the boys could pass up on the $500,000 check from K & D developers on the E. 9th building that continues to sit unoccupied and corroding.

Public and civic leaders talk a lot about Regionalization but the public institutions that provide venues for people in the Northeast Ohio area are all paid for by Cleveland and Cuyahoga County taxpayers.

The Region is absent when it comes to paying for its luxuries.

Those outside the city and county boundaries can enjoy sports, art and cultural events in the city but they don’t have to pay the taxes that support these activities.

This is about as unfair as the tea tax that helped start the American Revolution.

City and/or county residents are paying for an absent medical mart and convention center, a pro football stadium and a host of arts and cultural events enjoyed by everyone to say nothing of Gateway.

In addition to the $35.2 million for the medical mart, Cleveland taxpayers have shelled out another $45.2 million for the Browns stadium as of October 31 and for an additional $33.4 million for Arts & Culture issues as of the same date.

All the taxes are from regressive sales taxes, hitting the non-rich much harder than the wealthy. But you see from the Plain Dealer that the problem with taxes these days is that corporate rich guys have to pay on their stock option income.

Oh, what a shame!

In total for the above mentioned issues, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have paid the handsome sum of $113.8 million in these recently enacted sales taxes. (This doesn’t count the millions of dollars for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the recent $1 million gift from Mayor Frank Jackson and Council for the Rock Hall dinner.)

Of course, the taxes continue to be collected as you read this article.

We don’t have a medical mart or a new convention center, however, at about $3.5 million a month, the total for the year 2008 should be some $42 million, more than the $40 million a year County Commissioners Hagan and Dimora said it would bring into the County coffers.

One has to remember that this is $2 million more per year is being collected on sales during a deep recession, so the taxpayers may be giving the County much more than the estimated $800 million over the 25-year once the economy, if it ever does here, recovers.

But then it’s only money paid by ordinary people. It doesn’t hit any business people where it hurts. So I guess that’s okay with the news media and the people that count.

Good accounting, as always

We should have a constantly updating display on Public Square, tracking this number, as $113 million would go a long way toward feeding, clothing, educating, making healthy and putting to work the people of the regon. Now is not a good time to spend $100+ million of the people's money on anything but the people.

I went to the last County forum and the CSU debate on the MedCON and it is clear we are so far from having suitable answers to all the core questions surrounding this project that there is nothing to proceed on, and will not be for many years, if ever. Remember, the same CHANGE happening with banking and real estate is coming to healthcare, in the next four years, and we will not see such excessive spending on MedCON-shit... raising the first question, is there a market need for a MedCON-Cleveland or anywhere?

Add to that the reality travel is expensive and wasteful, and technolgy makes most conventions obsolete, and it is unlikely the world will see too many more Convention Centers any thing like they have been before.

I know our powers-that-were aren't planning anything innovative, so it is unlikely any of their poor plans will proceed... NEO-con-NEO is shut-down, as it should be.

Which means, SHUT DOWN, NEO-Con-NEO. Don't demolish any more of the Flats (that was real smart, wasn't it)... don't pave any more Opportunity Corridors. Don't plan any more power plants. 

Turn out the lights, close your office doors, and leave town! 

Time of the real people of NEO to take charge.

Do you have it in you? 

Disrupt IT

and where is Roldo

 there is a huge empty space here. I have been assuming that he is on vacation but it is time to return.

CoolCleveland and Roldo

Roldo publishes concurrently here, CoolCleveland, the Leader, and probably other sites--to my knowledge, content here is not always cross posted at all sites and vice versa.  (Or, he might just be fed up with reporting in the blogosphere :)

Here's the latest issue of CoolCleveland.  Many Clevelanders remember Chris Burgess from the late eighties/early nineties music scene here in Cleveland.  He weighs in on the healthcare system in Great Britain.  Check it out.

Where's Roldo?

I had noticed Roldo's absence and received email from some of his fans about Where's Roldo?

He doesn't seem to be posting anywhere right now - I emailed him this morning to see if everything is okay...

Disrupt IT

Roldo is fine

I just got an email from Roldo that he is doing great - he is on a secret mission

Disrupt IT

thanks, Norm

 in a hushed whisper: I won't tell anyone.