By:  Diane Benjamin

Does government create economic activity?  Tari Renner believes he needs to control what happens to downtown Bloomington.  Obviously Chris Koos had the same thought when he created Uptown.

Meantime, tax revenue is down in BOTH cities.  Both mayors believe more government intervention is needed to force economic development and growth.  Now they are trying to get the County on board too.

http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8579

The State of Illinois has been paying corporations for years to stay here.  Now almost every company threatens to leave if they don’t get special treatment.  Why would they want to leave Illinois?  Incompetent government, high taxes, and regulations.  But pay me and I’ll stay another year or two.  Two words:  Crony capitalism!

The Coliseum COSTS taxpayers money every year and the operators have refused to release real revenue numbers.

The BCPA COSTS taxpayers money every year.

Why did Green Top Grocery chose to locate in a private development?

The City of Bloomington owns a new multimillion dollar Fire Station that has never been staffed.

Judy Markowitz and Tom Hamilton are frequently blamed for errors of the past.

Bloomington, Normal, and McLean County are going to hear from a lady who claims she can direct economic development here.  The local area and the State of Illinois have a long history of failure.  Government does not create economic activity or wealth, but they insist on trying again and again with your money.  Since their policies are the opposite of free market capitalism, what name would you give it?

Tari Renner needs a downtown hotel and conference center.  Why?  Because he wants it.  He believes he will grow the local economy with your money.  I wonder what the Double Tree thinks?  What about the struggling Chateau?  Hasn’t Koos done enough damage to the local hotel market – now with his second hotel?

Economic Activity and wealth creation need three things:

• knowledge of a product or service people want
• freedom to make it happen
• innovation to guide the vision to success

Government doesn’t see what people want, they want to tell people what to want.  Government has the freedom to make it happen because they have your money.  Obviously innovation they don’t have.  Example:  Coliseum.  It was forced on the people, built again their will, and then run by 2 unqualified bozos who hide information from both the City and the taxpayers.  Their failure to be profitable is obviously your fault for not attending events.  Sure.

Has everybody given up on capitalism?  You keep electing people claiming to be really smart and above all those mistakes of the past, so evidently you have!

Since Tari loves to quote Ronald Reagan on TIF’s, here is another Reagan quote for him:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? 

 Jan 20, 1981 Inaugural address

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43130

Read the whole address, Reagan mentions economic development.  Just not in the way current leaders do.

Are we the generation who let freedom slip away?

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

FYI – Another Reagan quote