Quote:
Originally Posted by onwebcam
This has become an epidemic of CEO's getting paid millions to restructure companies by filing for bankruptcy to avoid paying out pensions and it won't end anytime soon. If municipalities would quit borrowing money like drunken sailors with unlimited credit lines and then taxing the hell out of their citizens to pay for it then it wouldn't be a problem for them. My city just finished up their latest multi-billion dollar "investment" which is projected to lose millions more for years to come and that's just on the electric bill. It's no surprise to me when they say "it will be made up on tax dollars" hoping everyone will forget it's not a profitable "investment" and another reason to raise taxes.
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The town I live in has a public swimming pool. I basically costs $2 to swim there if you are a resident of the town and they have memberships available for regular swimmers who want a better deal.
About five years ago the town started a campaign and put a measure on the ballot to build another public pool. It would be the same size, but newer and "better." Many people were behind it. They told everyone the financing structure for this pool would not raise taxes. There was one little problem, the profits that they projected from this pool were not going to be anywhere near what was needed to pay back the debt of building the pool. This means the debt would eventually be passed onto the tax payers, it would likely just not happen until 8-10 years down the road when they hoped everyone forgot about it.
Luckily, the word got out and and the measure failed. In the end the entire thing was basically just a big contractor trying to get the city to build something it didn't need and couldn't afford so they could get the contract and make a bunch of money.