Taxpayer Bondage
When it’s time to vote, do you know where your candidate stands? Do you know what a bond vote actually means? A bond vote is to allow government to borrow money from the future to pay for projects today. Over the past decades, the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, led by the spendthrift Parks Helms, whose actions are defended by Jennifer Roberts, put bond after bond in front of the voters, telling us how wonderful life would be if we ‘voted yes, for the children’. What misleading tripe. The salad they mixed for us congeals and what do we find? Debt, more debt, and even more debt.
The children at CMS aren’t doing remarkably better. Many of them still end up in jail as the next step after dropping out or graduating. The jails are packed. Students can’t read but are sent on to college. No, the bond binge wasn’t for the children; it was for the construction industry, the lending industry, and the lawyers who did the loans (see Parks Helms and friends). It was not for the people, yet the people must pay. Neither was it for those working for the county. In a time of lowered revenues, those most responsible for the debt are the least likely to be laid off. In fact, they get raises while those providing park and library services for the taxpayers look for new jobs. Thank the politicians and lifetime bureaucrats. Thank you, Parks Helms. Thank you, Jennifer Roberts. I’m in debt; you’re home free.
By the way, Jennifer Roberts’ rationale for the wild bond spending was that the county had a good cash flow when it borrowed the money. Well that was then and it turns out no one can see the future about the economy. So if we approve the city’s proposed $204-million bond referendum, what assurance do we have the economy won’t get worse and that Charlotte can’t pay the bills? NONE! But they’ll take your house if you don’t pay your taxes, just to pay the bond debt.
But back to basics: exactly what is a bond? It is a specific method for government to borrow money where the lien is held against future tax revenues. As government has the right and obligation to use force to collect taxes to pay the bond debt, a government bond has the cheapest interest rate available. But what is it actually? It is a way for government to borrow, in Charlotte’s case $204 million. They’ll spend the money in two years on roads, sidewalks and affordable housing. Roads I understand. Sidewalks? Have you seen where they build sidewalks? Where people don’t walk. And what is the City of Charlotte doing in the housing business? You answer that.
The better part of the story is the city has to use private lawyers to put the bonds on the market. Now I don’t know how much the lawyers charge to do the legal work on $204 million, but I do know there is a lot of backroom negotiating over who gets the work. It can’t be cheap. Lawyers wouldn’t argue over the work if it were cheap. So part of the bond is to make lawyers richer with your taxes.
The next part is the banks. They get to lend $204 million to the government, which collects the payments with the threat of force. Then they get to charge interest, at a profit of course, which the taxpayer gets to pay, the same taxpayer who gets charged insufficient funds by a method which calculates the charges in the way most punishing to the taxpayer. The same taxpayer who gets thrown out of his house if he doesn’t make his payments right on time, and can’t re-negotiate or borrow money because his credit’s not good enough. The same taxpayer who gets his credit card limit reduced because he was late on a $100 payment. The same bank which launders drug cartel money. The same bank which agreed to an out-of-court settlement for posting credit card payments late to be able to collect late fees. Now there are some good reasons to vote money to the banks.
I think I’ll pass.
This country needs to wring the borrowing out of its system – local, state and federal. Vote “no” on November’s bond ask. Tell them if they don’t have the money, don’t spend it.
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