By: Diane Benjamin
The anonymous editorial writer at the Pantagraph jumped in this week to proclaim the greatness of Bloomington and Normal sharing Sales Tax.
Citizens are being set up!
Normal has 5 TIF districts that are costing them A LOT of money because revenues generated aren’t paying the interest and principle on all the bonds. https://blnnews.com/2016/03/17/the-tif-slush-funds-normal/
Normal has raised taxes on almost everything – maybe that’s why their businesses are moving to Bloomington.
The City of Bloomington is headed down the same road. Take out bonds to hand money to developers and hope enough money is generated to pay the bonds and interest.
Instead of rejoicing at possibly being able to take the taxpayers off the hook with all the new revenue flowing to Bloomington, Renner wants to subsidize Normal.
Bloomington residents will make up the difference!
Citizens in both towns will be taxed to death – the exodus will continue for those who can.
Figured out what limited government means yet?
Maybe the next mayor will be the one who clearly states the purpose of government. Being a developer and interfering with free markets wouldn’t make the list. They fail every time they try.
How are the roads? (Hint: that one would make the list)
The only reason to share revenue is to share the debt. Absolutely ridiculous!
A long time ago aldermen and council members were elected to represent the citizens in B-N. Those were the good old days where budgets were limited to revenue and budgets were used to maintain the roads and other practical needs of the Town and City. Now days “glorious ideas” are dreamed and budgeted while the real needs of the public, like road repair etc are completely ignored. Since the Town and City governments have deemed it necessary to co-operate, like Normal approving a sales tax increase dependent upon Bloomington approving the same tax increase, it only makes sense that they share revenue as then the concept of sharing will only make it easier to increase taxes to pay for the pet projects that the mayors and elected officials deem desirable to “improve” the images. They fail to see that the cost of attracting businesses to their fair towns comes with a significant cost of lost revenue as they “attract” these new business with incentives. Business have learned that local officials are more desirous of having their name attached to new projects and thus demand assistance from the local governmental units, or else they won’t bring their businesses. Such a deal! Citizens live with less necessary service, poorly repaired streets and of course escalating taxes to pay for these “improvements to the quality of life”.
I like the Bike Trail on Blair between College Avenue and Ft. Jesse Road. I deem it the “Bike Trail to Nowhere”, since it’s completion last Fall I have never observed even one bicycle on this trail on any day of the week. Fiscal waste for pet projects seems the goal of most of the elected local officials.
You mean “If we build it, they didn’t come?”
There are a lot of bike trails to nowhere within the city limits but our tax dollars are being spent to build trails to Towanda and Shirley as part of the “Route 66 Project.” The failing infrastructure, including sewers as well as deferred capital improvements and maintenance of buildings is being ignored as well. I’m all for the community’s quality of life until it gets to the point where I can no longer afford my own necessities.
Congrats. You have arrived at “Can’t afford to live here”.
has anyone done the math to see which city would win or lose? I don’t have the numbers or I would.
Somebody would also need the population numbers. They keep changing.
The changing location of the retail from one city to the other will also need to be taken into account. PetsMart will draw revenue from Petco. The division ratio of 60/40 has been floated. The whole idea of sharing sales tax is so rediculous. Citizens from both cities shop and eat in each other’s town.
This I fear will happen to our Country. If a democrat gets in they will bail out irresponsible states like IL and CA and punish the states that follow a budget. Where do we run to then???
“If”? Between the Socialists and the RINOS, this process has been going on at the National level for half a century. It has just now reached such a critical mass that people are waking up to the fact this Country is DOOMED.
“Where do we run to then???” That frightening question is worth thinking about. Sadly, particularly for the last 7 years, the United States has been on the forefront of trying to destroy the few places on Earth that still value traditional morality, market economics, and private property rights, so there are not many places to choose from anymore.