Author: Brian J. Noggle

In St. Ann, a municipality in northwest St. Louis County, its sales tax mainstay is not providing the tax revenue it used to:

When Northwest Plaza gets a cold, St. Ann sneezes.

Northwest Plaza is ailing right now, and St. Ann’s finances are following suit.

The city depends on sales taxes from the shopping mall for a big chunk of its revenue, and sales at the mall have been on a steady decline since 2000.

“We are extremely sales tax driven,” said Mayor Tim James. “When that money goes on hiatus, which is what we are hoping, and not gone for good, it really shakes things up.”

Since 2000, the city has reduced its work force to 92 from 112 and has begun charging residents for garbage pickup that used to be free. But so far, the city has kept up appearances. Potholes are being fixed, and the streets are being patrolled.

Ah, yes, the facade of providing core government services instead of blowing scads of cash on a water park that won’t break even on an annual basis (like so many of your neighbor municipalities are).

So what is the lesson about this that municipal leaders can learn? Partnering with land developers in crony capitalist schemes to increase your sales tax revenue and then spending that sales tax revenue as though it will continue to grow infinitely might put you into trouble when those sales taxes decline?

Nah; the lesson is thank goodness you’re not fools like those people in St. Ann!

Deep within this New York Times article lamenting that having only a couple of million dollars doesn’t make you nutso rich (a point of view with which I agree, actually), we get this bit of commentary with which I don’t:

David Koblas, a computer programmer with a net worth of $5 million to $10 million, imagines what his life would be like if he left Silicon Valley. He could move to a small town like Elko, Nev., he says, and be a ski bum. Or he could move his family to the middle of the country and live like a prince in a spacious McMansion in the nicest neighborhood in town.

But Mr. Koblas, 39, lives with his wife, Michelle, and their two children in Los Altos, south of Palo Alto, where the schools are highly regarded and the housing prices are inflated accordingly. So instead of a luxury home, the family lives in a relatively modest 2,000-square-foot house — not much bigger than the average American home — and he puts in long hours at Wink, a search engine start-up founded in 2005.

“I’d be rich in Kansas City,” he said. “People would seek me out for boards. But here I’m a dime a dozen.”

Speaking on behalf of those of us in the middle of the country, please stay on a coast.

I don’t know who’s more of a self-important twit; the journalist writing the story, or the mcmillionaire.

MADD offers comments on Amtrak offering booze to high end rail customers:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving questioned whether $100 in free alcohol was too much.

“This sounds like a lot of credit toward possible overindulging,” said MADD spokeswoman Misty Moyse.

Considering that the overindulgers would be riding a train, I think MADD is out of place here, but kudos to CNN for finding political opposition for a business/travel story.

Apparently, the press cannot keep its mouth shut regarding the United States’ covert incursions and invasion of a sovereign nation:

O, Canada! More Americans Heading North: The Number of Americans Moving to Canada in 2006 Hit a 30-Year High

Our citizens cry out for more wait times for medical services!

Missouri Department of Transportation, November 10, 2004, after a Missouri Constitutional amendment throws hundreds of millions of dollars into the Missouri Department of Transportation budget:

Funding from passage of Amendment 3 will provide thousands of miles of smooth roads on Missouri’s most heavily traveled highways, officials with the Missouri Department of Transportation announced today.

MoDOT unveiled the Smooth Roads Initiative, a plan to provide 2,200 miles of smoother pavement, brighter road markings and other safety improvements in three years. The initiative is the first part of a three-part plan to use Amendment 3 funds to improve the state’s highway system. A map specifying the selected roads was included in the announcement.

“Missourians spoke loud and clear when they voted for Amendment 3,” said MoDOT Director Pete Rahn. “By an almost four-to-one margin, they said they’re not happy with current road conditions, and they want them fixed. Starting today, that’s just what we’re going to do.”

Fast forward (or travel one day at a time like the rest of us) to August, 2007, not even three years later, and learn that despite the best efforts of the government, that new money ain’t enough:

Missouri’s top transportation official is canvassing the state talking about a “perfect storm” forming over his department.

Road construction costs are spiking, debt payments are ballooning, and at the same time, fuel taxes are generating slightly less cash and the federal highway trust fund is speeding toward a multibillion-dollar deficit.

Wow, who could have seen that coming?

The more you feed the government, the bigger it gets; the bigger it gets, the more it needs to eat. Ah, who cares about economics and an understanding of a bureaucratic nature. THE BEAST IS HUNGRY!

Mark Steyn enumerates flaws in the justice system. I agree with everything he says.

But I don’t expect that there will be a groundswell to fix these issues since it’s not everyone’s grandmother getting railroaded like everyone’s grandmother is starving and destitute. At least, that’s how Congress characterizes them.