In one of my recent posts, I documented potential losses in City tax revenues of up to $10 million related to the Anheuser-Busch-InBev merger, losses that compounded the City’s dire budgetary outlook. I have yet to discuss how the City has continued to operate in the absence of tax revenues from the earnings tax on stock options. As this series is quite lengthy already, I am going to distill the facts into the following one sentence:
To offset its lost tax revenues, the City of St. Louis moved to extract additional monies from its longtime residents through a regressive increase in the sales tax and the imposition of privately managed red light cameras of questionable legality.
Now, let me get this right. Francis Slay cuts taxes on nonresident millionaires, raises taxes on everyone else, nickel and dimes us with red light tickets, refuses to meet with President Obama about the economic stimulus bill, blocks the construction of affordable housing, seeks to divest the St. Louis Public Library of its Central Branch, demotes the City’s fire chief for refusing to follow political orders, and fails to provide oversight and accountability as a member of the Police Board despite heartbreaking challenges with crime, yet we allow him to be the titular head of the City’s Democratic Party?
Francis Slay is not my mayor, because he idolizes former US Senator John Danforth, who brought us Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court. That, and just about everything else he does is consistent with what one would expect from a Republican. Why haven’t the Republicans bothered to run candidates to oppose Francis Slay in the past two mayoral elections?
Ideology matters; labels do not, and if I were Lewis Reed, I would fully expect for my close association with Francis Slay to become a liability in a future campaign.
Tags: Earnings Tax, francis slay, Lewis Reed, Lewis Reed and Francis Slay, Republican Economics, Stock Options
June 12, 2009 at 7:10 pm |
Whatever you do, please do not assume people will turn out in droves to vote. City politics has degenerated to it’s current state thanks to widespread apathy. Lewis Reed might be an idiot, but his campaign staffers aren’t. They know that if their election is hushed up, only people “in the know”, translation, picked by Reed, will turn out to vote-for him of course. This is how Slay has won virtually all of his elections. An old saying of the Daly regime in Chicago-”Don’t Make No Waves, Don’t Back No Losers”. The City of St. Louis is currently run by it’s small conservative, and, grin, old, minority. Since you live in Villa’s ward, I’m sure you see much of this with your own two eyes.
August 10, 2009 at 11:47 am |
[...] and Francis Slay’s profligate use of TIFs has not created a single job. In fact, it led to increased taxes and cuts in services. No wonder the most recent unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor [...]
August 28, 2009 at 12:57 pm |
[...] St. Louis Business Journal, in its article detailing Francis Slay’s increasing isolation as a nominal member of the Missouri Democratic Party, mistakes and conflates Francis Slay’s political [...]
September 30, 2009 at 5:18 pm |
[...] understanding how those of us not on a payroll allied with Slay could possibly afford to support his and Lewis Reed’s public policies. Unemployment Rate for St. Louis City, August 2009, U.S. Bureau of Labor [...]
November 22, 2009 at 1:28 am |
[...] alright, though, since our City’s patriarchs place such a high priority on promoting the equitable distribution of public resources. Our City is prospering today, because our current crew of dinosaurs and their young acolytes [...]
December 9, 2009 at 2:40 am |
[...] penchant for cutting taxes for the wealthy. Considering that Francis Slay already raised taxes multiple times on all city residents, his henchman Jeff fears that any further attempts to extract money from City [...]
January 27, 2010 at 6:11 pm |
[...] some would point to City voter approval of a Public Safety sales tax and a sales tax for Parks and Recreation Centers as an explanation for our staggeringly high rate [...]