Well, it finally happened…
Sales tax receipts DECREASED for the first time in 3 years.
Maybe trees DON’T grow to the sky. Maybe we are finally going to see that much-needed recession to clear out the dead wood and garbage (* cough ** Carvana * cough **), maybe sales tax receipts start falling and the City’s money tree starts losing a lot of leaves.
Amazingly, the LEDC AND the City may have almost perfectly nailed the top in sales tax receipt by borrowing heavily against that “sure thing” money they assumed would grow forever.
You’ll recall, the LEDC borrowed $1.5 million for its ill-fated Business Pork project AND they begged for and received another $971,000 from the City coffers – both very recently.
The City also borrowed $6.5 million at 3.26% for some very dubious projects only two months ago.
As I wrote two months ago:
Don’t worry though, according to TJ Monroe, “typically, we are able to pay those down within the nine years and have saved a substantial amount of money”.
Hm. Perhaps.
Or perhaps with the Fed finally raising rates back to normal, thus cratering the stock market and the housing market and causing a deep (and much-needed) recession, the City won’t have the ridiculous always-increasing sales tax and other tax revenue to rely on and find themselves screwed by the debt burden.
All those stimmy checks and fraudulently obtained PPP loans are long gone and now the addict is being weaned off the monetary heroin. It won’t be pretty. The market is already down 20%, shit coins are being revealed for the Ponzi scheme they are, and businesses are starting to see slowdowns.
A recession probably isn’t the best time for new businesses to start or old businesses to expand into the new ‘Business Pork’ either. The LEDC may very well see a double whammy of declining revenue and zero businesses having any interest in the Business Pork.
Ouch.