By: Diane Benjamin
Part 1 https://blnnews.com/2018/12/26/is-bloomington-a-bank/
Part 2 https://blnnews.com/2018/12/28/part-2-is-bloomington-a-bank/
Part 3 https://blnnews.com/2018/12/28/part-3-is-bloomington-a-bank/
One thing I haven’t posted yet is how much Community Block Grant money is loaned out. The list goes back to 1981, some of them are obviously un-collectible. Some of the people listed do not appear as owning a home in the County Assessor’s database or (in at least one case) the property address doesn’t exist.
CDBG funds come from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is just another thing the federal government was never created to do. Money is laundered through bureaucrats via your taxes and then they decide how much to dole out to cities. A Public Hearing is required to decide how to spend the money, both Bloomington and Normal recently held theirs. Those hearings don’t matter since both cities are going to spend the money how they want using to the HUD guidelines. Keep in mind this redistribution of whatever wealth remains when the bureaucrats are done is going on across the country. Compassion!
Link to Bloomington’s Public Hearing documentation: PDF page 154-169 http://www.cityblm.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=20492
How much they expect to receive is not included in the documentation!
Bloomington currently has a deferred CDBG balance outstanding of $1,860,914 for 141 loans. Payments are not being made. As stated above, some are not collectible, but unlike the private sector who wouldn’t carry receivables forever, they are still on the books as an asset.
Four loans totaling $88,478 were just made in October. For some unknown reason they were not included in the $1,860,914, so the real total is $1,949,392.
One other thing I don’t understand is the original balance on these loans was $2,119,211. At some point payments were being made on some of these loans, but payments stopped and they were put in “deferred”.
The City is showing an additional $75,514 outstanding that payments are being made on, they were made between 1993 and 2008. The original amount totaled $154,139, these 9 loans likely should have been paid back years ago.
One of the 141 loans is at 3%, one on the list doesn’t show an APR, all the rest are at 0%
Things I don’t know:
- If payments are received, where does the money go? General Fund or loaned back to other people?
- How much does administration of these loans costs Bloomington taxpayers, filing a lien costs at least $20.00. How much does tracking and recording payments cost? Who is in charge of past due loans? Who reviews the applications and meets with the homeowner? Is legal involved in creating documents?
- Who decides if applicants get grants or loans? Both are listed on Bills and Payroll
- Was an ordinance ever passed by the Council prohibiting loans and grants made from the General Fund? (your local tax money)
- Are these owners able to maintain the rest of their property? Home ownership requires money for repairs. Is this just a band-aid approach to keep people in their homes they likely can’t afford?
Keep in mind the City has an additional $217,823 outstanding from General Fund loans. Those loans go back to 2001. Without looking up every property, I have no idea how much of this money will ever be collected.
I did see one loan from 1987 for a measly $725. No payments have ever been made on this loan. The property owner pays over $6,000 in property taxes every year. Nobody ever asked for the $725? It is on the “deferred” CDBG list.
If excess amounts of your money wasn’t stolen by taxation, programs like this wouldn’t exist. The need would also decreases as people would keep more of what they earn. Personal responsibility isn’t required when money is available that shouldn’t be. Add this to the list of things the feds shouldn’t be doing along with funding empty buses and calling it compassion.
And yet they ALWAYS “beg” for MORE taxes claiming they don’t have ENOUGH to cover expenses!
WHEN government (BIG or small) gets into the capital sector, a loss is almost ALWAYS assured! Just look at WHAT happens in most ANY foreign country that has “NATIONALIZED” a business, it becomes a boondoggle, that which was ONCE profitable and after the government gets ahold, it becomes a money vacuum! More, MOre, MORE!!
MAYBE in 2019 they will decide to TAX heavily, government stupidity..
Read the Constitution, it is the function of government to tax. All governments can legally tax and do tax. That’s how anything in the government runs, by Congress appropriating tax dollars. Just because you don’t like what the government is doing, doesn’t make it “stealing”. You don’t like HUD? That’s your opinion. Just because you don’t like how or why a local government appropriating tax dollars, again, that YOUR opinion. Your case against public transportation is also your opinion.
Government is inept at best, at worst they use other people’s money for power. Fortunately I have lots of readers who agree. More everyday in fact!
Hey there Logcabin although your comments are true they’re quite naive, in my opinion. And government does steal from the people via the tax system in my opinion.
Lots of other people too!
Government “steals”? “Government is inept? If government is inept, then there wouldn’t be the infrastructure that you drive on to get to point A to B or police or fire protection. That inept government wouldn’t have given you the internet or GPS mapping or the multitude of things that our government does. That’s the trouble with your radical opinion. If you don’t like your government taxation, move to a different country. You quickly realize that you will be taxed heaver for that government, no matter where you go. Your manta that government is inept is a great disservice to our country which you are a part of all your life. Again go and live in another country were you don’t have the freedoms and life style you have in this country. You’ll quickly see that our taxation is part of being an American, our taxes give you a standard of living many countries dream of.
What “takers” are you talking about? The elderly and disabled? The disabled veteran? Children? The working poor who don’t pay income tax? I don’t get where your ire is aimed at “takers”. The working poor do contribute with taxation of services and goods. So I’m not sure that you know what you talking about in regards to “takers”.
You would fit in great in Venezuela. Elizabeth Warren announced she is running for president. She’s be the perfect candidate for you.
You would fit in great in Venezuela. Elizabeth Warren announced she is running for president. She’s be the perfect candidate for you. Have you driven the local roads? Here’s the problem: you think government needs to take care of people. A lot of people think it’s our job to take care of each other. It’s been proven democrats don’t give anywhere near as much to charity as conservatives. We know direct help us much more efficient.
Taxes part of living in America to be used for infrastructure and maintenance, police protection, fire protection , military , and social security for those that have contributed for years not to be handed out to those that are capable of working for it. I have worked since age of 12 now still working 55 years later. My parents kept a roof over my head and food in my belly and I did go with my dad numerous times while he pawned items in order to buy food at the end of the month. I am sick and tired of the TAKERS among us that continue to suck up my tax dollars without contributing squat. Are there those that need help you bet and I support helping them that is why I have done volunteer work for years feeding and providing household items for those in need. For our local government to hand out money and for those receiving it without even paying a few dollars back is totally unacceptable. We have created a society of takers and those takers ,many capable of working need to be held accountable to work. You can place me into the silent majority that is more than pissed off for being taken advantage of.
Logcabin: Tax is FINE, as long as it’s used PROPERLY and NOT wasted own frivolous endeavors! THIS is what people are upset about. Governments the WORLD OVER waste money and mis-manage “business” AND their own affairs. I suppose you NEVER have had to wait in line or on the phone when dealing with a government agency??
Having given my background I will not respond to “what is a taker” it would not make sense to some individuals.
Let’s see our government is so inept that you’d be mimeographing this blog and mailing it out since there would be no internet. Ditto the interstates you drive on and many modern conveniences you don’t think twice about in your life. It’s you not me who is complaining about taxation and how horrible your government operates. Perhaps it’s YOU should go to live in Venezuela. Maybe then you all would be grateful for our government. Venezuela put all its eggs in one basket, oil. “Because it has so much oil, Venezuela has never bothered to produce much else. It sells oil to other countries, and with the dollars it earns, imports the goods Venezuelans want and need from abroad.
Its oil revenues account for about 95% of its export earnings. But when the oil price plummeted in 2014, Venezuela was faced with a shortfall of foreign currency.” So Venezuela printed money and hyperinflation occurred. Thus the current problem in Venezuela. Hyperinflation and lack of goods and food.
Who stated that we as a country could just print money? The current US president. Who is increasing our debt and deficit? The current president. I digress, could go on…..
The biggest “takers” in our country are the elderly, veterans and children. We have an increasing retired population and many war veterans who take benefits from the VA, Social Security and Medicare. Those are your “takers”.
Hey there Logcabin. According to Obama, you (nor the government) didn’t build that. That was his opinion and he was the government! Lol.
Logcabin: YOUR history book is REALLY twisted. “TAKERS” have been around since the second citizen was born.
As for GOVERNMENT supplying ALL our needs. WHAT about 100 years ago when the U.S. did NOT have income tax and we had philanthropists instead? Most every SMALL town had a Carnegie library, Maybe you should look up the “Alaska syndicate” and see what THEY did for Alaska & America.. OH, and they used THEIR OWN MONEY! GIVERS! Not takers.
You keep bringing up Venezuela, well, since you seem to like it SO MUCH, move there, but be prepared to wait in line for your next cookie. YES, they have OIL, and they can BUY things with oil money, just like the Saudis, but America has tillable ground (which they don’t make anymore of) and we can grow FOOD, I can live without oil..
ALL material things are either GROWN or MINED. THINK about it..
Nothing like taking a comment out of context. “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
The point is, is that when we succeed, WE SUCCEED BECAUSE OF OUR INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE, BUT BECAUSE WE DO THINGS TOGETHER. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires” Obama in 2012
My comments about Venezuela was in response to the editor of this blog. Venezuela is doing poorly because it depended on one resource, oil. When that resource price collapsed, their economy collapsed. They also mismanaged the economic collapse with unwisely printing money. There are other countries that have democratic socialism that are functioning just fine from Canada to Finland, Norway Denmark, Ireland. They do not look at those who are less fortunate as “takers”. They have better and stronger safety nets. People no matter what there situation are taken care of because they are human and a government should care about their citizens.
Income tax has been around for over a 100 years. Before that there were tariffs on all goods, WHICH WERE/ARE taxes YOU pay for goods imported. There were also in the 19th century, continued cycles of panics, bank runs, economic collapses. Graduated income taxes along with the Federal Reserve have lessen economic hardships and given this country its wealth.
Obama and I happen to believe in our American system. I’m proud to be an American. Commenters here seem to not like America. That’s sad.