The histrionics in the literature about how Gardner 'will never be the same' if this thing goes in, well, if you really wanted Gardner to stay a funky small town, you shouldn't have spread your legs for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart not only made Gardner its new bitch, but as far as I can tell, Gardner is all lubed up and making goofy faces. Trying to catch its breath and wondering if Wal-Mart would be gentle about anal.
Plus, the crazy Dolphin Song lady is heading up the resistance. That goes halfway to proving something is a good idea in my book. This is the off-the-charts-hippie broad who told me I was harming my daughter by letting her read at an early age.
Yes, I said broad. A term I reserve for humorless cunts like Tipper Gore.
I also was somewhat resigned to the notion that it was a done deal. The deal, if you're still reading, is an intermodal transfer facility covering 1300 acres about a mile from my house. Gardner had all of about 5000 residents when I moved here nine years ago, and this monster will bring 5000 trucks a day through. Which I guess means it might actually be a bigger abomination than Wal-Mart.
Still, I'm not anti-growth, and if Burlingon Northern Santa Fe wants to spend their money building it and making the necessary road and rail improvements to hook it up to the grid, there's worse neighbors we could get. It's no LegoLand, but it's not a nuclear waste dump either.
Well, unless Al Queda is as dumb as some of the NIMBY types I've heard. I mean, really, even if our security is that sucky, and even if Al Queda got The Bomb, I think 9/11 shows they have more ambition than to blow up a small Midwestern suburb. They might send the bomb through here, I suppose, but if it went off here it would be a total accident. A bomb meant for Chicago or something going off early.
But BNSF wants more than the right to develop this project. They want Gardner to foot the bill for the improvements they need, even though the land they want to do it on is outside the city limits. And they want tax breaks for doing it.
Hello?
I'm not anti-development, but I am anti-welfare. Especially corporate welfare. Give some deranged person a subsidized job holding a sign in front of Little Caesars if you must. Pretend he's useful and send the social worker by to nag him about taking his thorazine. Worse case, he'll fuck up and hold the sign upside down.
But don't give tax dollars to businessmen who have already demonstrated an ability to work the system to great advantage. Especially not businessmen running companies larger than most countries. Giving them handouts is an excrementally bad idea, an idea so bad even the Dolphin Song broad can see it sucks.
So I signed the petition, made the trip into the odious broad's shop and signed. Accepted a sign Em insisted on marching with before planting it in the front yard.
But it's not a knee-jerk reaction. It's my brain rebelling against this. And that twitching is my middle finger seeking out asshole railroad executives.
4 comments:
That's ridiculous. How many jobs are they going to create/ Why should Gardner and/or the State of Kansas be fcreaming their panties over this enough to offer such perks?
The argument for tax abatements on the basis 'jobs will be created' is pretty thin. Any economic activity creates jobs, and the businesses who benefit from the tax breaks don't engage in non-economic activity.
If there's such a thing as non-economic activity. Transendental Meditiation, running for office as a Libertarian, I suppose there are some things that have no impact on the economy.
And I hate taxes. If governments would simply spend less money, I'd probably be in favor of any tax cut, even a selective one like a property tax abatement of so-called tax increment financing (TIF projects are a scam, generally).
But in reality, governments spend as if maximum revenues were coming in, and abatements get offset by higher taxes and/or higher public debt. Higher taxes for people like homeowners who don't have the moxy of a railroad or shopping mall developer.
Demanding a tax break for locating in your lucky town, is pretty much standard for ALL big companies, and they WILL GET THEIR WAY! They always hold the threat of taking their jobs to some other lucky town. Or if they really want to make you beg, they say Mexico or India during negotiations.
I know it's SOP for large companies to expect tax breaks.
But they are unwelcome, so why would we want to pay tem? This is the development equivalent of an ugly prom date.
Let the do India or Mexico. Or Arkansas.
If I can help it, they can do one of those. Someone's getting fucked, by why should it be me?
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