Mayor Bloomberg (aka the rich turtle or the shrimpmeister) was on the news last night to announce how he’s saving the construction at Ground Zero by throwing $600mm of NYC taxpayer money into that big hole to replace the smart investors who won’t loan to the project.
When a reporter asked about how can you commit this money when you’re cutting cops and teachers he retorted that all taxpayer monies come from economic development.
While I agree that economic development is really important for New York City, I don’t think we need to further develop the cancerous real estate development industry. We could use some development besides building yuppie boxes for Wall Street douchebags that may never (please God) return to NYC.
The point is the mayor continues to champion the industry that played a key role in our present bucket of shit. Doesn’t the Shrimp have any other ideas besides the one that already hasn’t worked.
I’ve been really opposed to the big piece of shit called Atlantic Yards, because it’s the same move. This is the best economic development we can come up with? A bunch of overgrown freaks throwin around a ball while a bunch of rich corporate douchebags eat hot dogs. We’re aiming pretty low here and pretending like it’s really gonna work. How about some small company development? People, you know normal people who have ideas? Remember them?
Everybody I talk to thinks Ground Zero should have been transformed into a park and a memorial or a farmer’s market, but the Shrimp and his kind insist on rebuilding the towers. As some sort of deluded defiance of the terrorists. It’s all so misguided and sad.
preach it.
I’m usually wary of indignation that begins by invoking supposedly wrongful use of “taxpayer money”. That switch is often used against artists and cultural institutions. Your hear people yell how angry they are that some museum or funding agency is using “taxpayer money” to support “rubbish masquerading as art.” Often enough, the folks who talk most about “my taxpayer money” are the folks who pay the least tax.
I wouldn’t support improper cuts in funding for school programs and other social necessities when there ought to be stimulus money to prevent that, or indeed at any time. With regard to the development of Ground Zero, however, people really have to step back sometimes and do some thinking before they rush out with NO placards.
Ground Zero is prime real estate for the City of New York. When developed and in use, it brings in billions of dollars in real estate taxes, corporate taxes, as well as employee earned income tax from the thousands of people who find employment there, including mutli-million dollar CEO taxes (yes, as you very well know, even after all the shenanigans that they come up with to evade taxes, some of these folks still pay annual taxes that run into millions, far more than you and I and everyone else that we hang with.) It is precisely those taxes that keep the City in fiscal shape and enable it to attend to critical education and social expenditure, including supporting cultural institutions. This is something you would know far better than many of your readers.
Rather than a waste of “taxpayer money”, then, Ground Zero developed and in use is a very fat cash cow for the City. Before it was destroyed, it pumped trillions in taxes into the City’s coffers. Once revived, it could do the same again. Thousands of additional tax-paying jobs will be created there. Families with unemployed bread-winners could find employment again there. Corporate entities will occupy it, and in spite of whatever tax incentives they may receive to do so, will nonetheless pay tax. There will be businesses there that feed the City’s economy.
It is a good investment for the City to finish the work on Ground Zero. It creates jobs. It brings in money to pay for those very programs that we fight for as rights, including memorial parks. Reviving Ground Zero as an economic center is not about defying terrorists: Bloomberg couldn’t care less about that. It makes fiscal sense. It is not a waste of “taxpayer money”.
18 minutes ago ·
First off, thanks for the comment. Unfortunately I don’t find it to be very thoughtful or thought provoking. It’s somewhat obnoxious to say the folks who talk most about taxpayer money are the ones who pay the least tax. Does paying more taxes make one person more of an American than another? It would appear it does for you, just like Mayor Bloomberg.
There are so many ways to critique your point of view, but it’s too late in the evening, and frankly you ain’t gonna change your mind. You just love shilling for the rich folks so enjoy the ride, I’m sure they’ll treat you right.