First off, a huge congratulations to whoever finally got smart a few weeks ago and realized they could use YouTube as essentially free video storage for City council meetings. Took you a few months…but somebody (probably not an IT person) used their head. Funny that Azbell reps, Monica and Kristy didn’t see that right away.
I’m going to try and do this every council meeting, going forward, so you can get the REAL dope – not the fluffy Dispatch version.
The big event was council arguing over how to help local businesses affected by the Chinese virus closings. Sounded like ‘how to hand out free money’ but I’ll admit I missed the first 8 minutes of the meeting.
Takeaways
(1) Mike, Mike, Mike….how the hell can Mike White NOT know sales tax receipts to the City will drop severely going forward?? Mike, you are a business owner. Have your sales been higher or lower the last 33 days? I know that personally, I’ve bought virtually nothing over the last month except for groceries – which are not taxable. Gas sales (and PRICE) are WAY down. Furniture stores…automobile sales…etc….all of those have essentially ceased. Mike’s thinking that the shelves were bare in Walmart and HEB and thus will INCREASE taxes is erroneous – since groceries aren’t taxed.
Perhaps I’m wrong and missing something, but I fail to see how sales tax receipts won’t be at least 20% lower than normal during this time and lower going forward.
(2) I get VERY VERY scared when City council starts talking about ‘helping businesses’ with money/incentives/grants/whatever. We have more than a few council members who have ZERO experience running a business and have no idea what the hell they are talking about. Judging from the way they have squandered millions in the past, I can only assume they will muck this up royally.
(3) The Small Business Administration is ALREADY running programs. The Feds are ALREADY pissing away $2 trillion on ‘help’. The governments at the federal, state and local level ALREADY spend nearly ONE TRILLION DOLLARS per year on welfare – which is a safety net ALREADY in place. The idea that Mandy Walsh (who has never run a business) or Delana Toups (ditto) or Chuck Harrison (ditto) are going to reinvent this wheel is laughable.
(4) Finley is now telling us that “they don’t sit on their hands” and they are still working behind the scenes thinking up ways to spend more money (CIP committee).
(5) Misti now patting herself and council members on the back for….well, for showing up, I guess.
Wow. Meeting over. That was fast. Nary a word about how the City will deal with reduced tax receipts going forward.
I’ll finish with this simple economic truism that is apparently lost on most: the government does NOT create wealth. It merely transfers from one entity to another. That’s it. All while taking a 30% administrative skim. The best thing government can do (state, local or federal) is GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY.
The best thing a City government can do is provide law enforcement, a court system, clean and reasonably priced water and keep the streets in shape – and do it all as efficiently and cheaply as possible. That’s IT. All the rest is bullshit and wheel spinning.
We don’t need $1.5 million City council chambers. We don’t need multi-million dollar business parks. We don’t need $96,000 A/V systems. We don’t need $183,000 bathrooms. And we SURE as hell don’t need Mandy Walsh and Finley deGraffenreid ‘fixing’ the local economy by randomly handing out tax dollars as “help”. Seriously…just get out of the way and let the free market work – and maybe stop the overkill of shutting down the entire economy by decree.