NASCAR Collusion
Tuesday the voters of Mecklenburg County turned down an additional sales tax. Wednesday, the editorial writers at the Charlotte Observer tell us the voters: “… didn’t say stop; they say restart.” That, of course, is their opinion.
Then the following Saturday we are told of the inability of the NASCAR Hall of Fame to pay its bills. The situation is a convoluted mess, with the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority being the managing organization while the City of Charlotte is the actual owner. The taxpayers, of course, are on the hook, but have little say so, except to say; we told you so, we told you not to do it. Small wonder the taxpayers feel Taxed Enough Already.
We are told the hall is struggling to meet obligations and that the Deputy City Manager, Ron Kimble, asked the banks to consider forgiving a $21,000,000 loan. Let me repeat this: the city can’t pay a loan with the money generated from an entertainment venue and so asks the lenders, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, to forgive the loans. That is too cute. Imagine this: you lose your job in a government inspired recession and can’t pay the property taxes on your house to the City of Charlotte. What, please guess, would be the reaction? Well I can tell you for a fact; they’d take your house and put you in the street. And if you refused to go quietly, would contract the work out to the sheriff’s office, which would remove you by force, with guns drawn if you give them the least bit of an excuse. Back to the point.
Governments have proven time and again that they have no expertise outside their normally accepted responsibilities. So what are they doing in the entertainment business? Very honestly, the truth is plain for all to see. They have no personal or business risk in these ventures so there is no reason not to enter into them. If the venture goes bad, they either get the taxpayers to pay more, or, in this case, ask the banks to forgive the debt. In either case no one in government suffers anything. In private business, someone would be held responsible. In government, the idea is to hold someone else responsible. So why should they not enter into these situations? There is no reason. They are using your money, or the banks money, and will get paid no matter what happens.
The next question is why should the banks forgive any of the loans? This is beyond me. If a private business or individual can’t make payments, does the bank forgive the loan? No, they take what they can and sue you for the rest. They’re as bad to do business with as the government. So why would they forgive any of this loan? But we must expect they might because the article tells us they forgave a lot of the Whitewater Center’s loans. But it makes you believe there is something inherently immoral about the relationship between the banks and government.
In fact, there is a lot which is crooked about the whole deal. But what is worse, it is a repeating pattern of abuse of the taxpayers and private business by government. This is not the first deal Charlotte/Mecklenburg has made of this sort. In fact the common refrain is to build something, spend the taxpayer’s money, give some money to some rich people (Panthers – Knights – Hornets) then tell the taxpayers you need money for something government is supposed to do, like build schools, so they must raise your taxes.
No, it is just crooks using the legitimacy and force of government to steal from the people. Nothing more, nothing less.
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