$40,000.00 tax bill???????

[JohnnyReb]

CBS News just had a segment about a recent 22 year old college graduate getting a job...as the Mayor of a town in Massive-2-shites. It's another small dead and dying town of just 3,000 people. He will control a budget of $120,000,000.00...that's 120 million dollars...a little math and that's $40,000.00 per person!!!!!!! No damn wonder it's dying.

They didn't bother to mention his party affiliation so I'd assume it's democrat.

[NHSparky]

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/11/09/victory-sinks-in-for-22-year-old-mayor-elect-of-holyoke/

Think you might have your numbers bass-ackwards.  Holyoke has a population of just under 40K.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Also, a city's budget is not solely from the tax proceeds of its residents, there are various Federal and State programs that figure into it as well, depending on who's telling the story and what they're trying to say with their factoids.

[JohnnyReb]

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/11/09/victory-sinks-in-for-22-year-old-mayor-elect-of-holyoke/

Think you might have your numbers bass-ackwards.  Holyoke has a population of just under 40K.

I swear I heard CBS News say a population of 3,000....but I am a little hard of hearing so I could be wrong. From what the news was showing, the place looked like a mini-Detroit.

[JohnnyReb]

Also, a city's budget is not solely from the tax proceeds of its residents, there are various Federal and State programs that figure into it as well, depending on who's telling the story and what they're trying to say with their factoids.
[/quote

Yes, I know. 50+ years ago, my daddy tried to get our rural community to incorporate into a town. Everyone was against it because they feared much higher taxes like our little town had. He tried to explain that we wouldn't need added municipal taxes because of the revenue sharing that was in place back then. Each town got a percentage (don't remember how it was figured) of the gas tax, a percentage of license tag fees, county property tax(?), etc.. The county sheriff and highway patrol would provide police protection, we already had a volunteer fire dept. (first in a county that had no fire depts.), the state highway dept. would still keep up the half dozen roads (many more now) and "city" officials would serve sans salary or just a few dollars.

The "uptown" democrat machine sucked every dime they could into that blackhole of a town (county seat) and wasted it. The people out in the country were getting almost nothing for their property taxes and other revenue that came into the county.

Way back then senators had what was called a "discretionary fund" to spend any way and anywhere he liked in his home county. We had a state senator that bought equipment and put the chaingang to work paving county dirt roads. He got a lot of the county out of the mud. He built new schools out in the country to replace the shacks that were called schoolhouses. He served 2 terms before the uptown democrat machine stole (yes stole) the election and installed a drunken lawyer in his seat....then a WW2 black market profiteer and crooked state House of Representative member ran the uptown democrat machine for 30 years.....and the country folks went back to getting very little for their dollar.