The dumbest crap ever written
I thought I’d read the dumbest shit ever written at Veterans Today and from Gordon Duff, but this one from the Old Media has everything over there beat hands down. In the Minnesota Post is an article written by Doug Grow entitled “This week’s American Legion gathering is latest evidence that government does create jobs”;
It has become popular — especially among conservative voices — to say that government doesn’t create jobs and economic growth; that only the private sector can do that. Government, the voices say, needs to get out of the way.
But this week, more than 10,000 members of the American Legion will be in the Twin Cities, filling up hotels and restaurants throughout downtown Minneapolis. Before they leave, the delegates to the convention are expected to spend from $17 million to $22 million in the region.
Much of the money will end up in state coffers directly through sales taxes and indirectly by income taxes paid by people whose jobs depend on tourism dollars. According to Explore Minnesota, there are 70,000 people in Hennepin County alone whose jobs revolve around travel and tourism.
The point: The Legion delegates — and the thousands of delegates from dozens of other large conventions — wouldn’t be here without the Minneapolis Convention Center.
The convention center is a product of government. It’s owned by the city. It’s built — and maintained — through a variety of hotel, restaurant and entertainment taxes. Authority for levying those taxes came from the 1986 Legislature.
Government doesn’t create jobs? The convention center would seem to be a small example of a different reality.
Fucking brilliant. One local government builds a convention center and it’s proof that conservatives are bone heads. How can Grow translate that into a national jobs program? Is Obama going to fund a series of convention centers?
The structure, which opened in 1989, is not self-sustaining. Tax collections from hotel, liquor and restaurant taxes amount to about $48 million a year. $18 million of that is used to subsidize operations of the building, and the rest goes to pay off debt and keep the center as current as possible.
But by continuing to invest, Tennant said, “the building remains ahead of the [national] competition.”
“It’s designed to be a loss leader,” said Tennant. “There’s an effort to minimize the losses. But in every way, it’s been a great public investment.”
Oh, so it doesn’t make enough money to be profitable without continuously dipping into taxpayer pockets, but somehow it’s proof that government creates jobs, huh? Funny, but something that costs more in taxes than it’s worth is hardly an asset to taxpayers, Mr. Grow.
It loses $18 million a friggen year!? and that’s his great example? What a fuggin moron. It makes up what it loses by forcing people who don’t use it to pay for it…absolute genius…THUMP, THUMP, THUMP [that’s me banging my head on the desk…]
I think Grow is serious.
I get the long winter nights being boring, but folks, sucking down helium by cartload causes brain damage.
Jonn, you aren’t supposed to be able to understand this logic. It takes the mind of the Liberal/Progressive/Democrat, infused with large amounts of mushrooms, weed, injections of silicone into various areas of the body, and more to make sense of this.
This is the typical mentality of the average progressive city dweller in Minnesota. I lived there long enough to develop a strong distaste for ANYTHING in Minneapolis. The suburbs are an entirely different story. Another good example of Minneapolis’ extravagant spending is the light rail system they built between the airport and downtown. Its purpose was to help diminish traffic out to the airport. What it HAS done was create a $13 Million annual deficit in perpetuity and the light rail ties up any traffic along Hiawatha Ave (Hwy 55)
Hmmmm. Kind of like saying a dropped petri dish at the CDCP creates jobs in the medical community…
Never argue with drunks or morons.
Substitute “Obama’s Administration” for “Convention Center” and I think it works as the same example.
Doug Grow used to write for the Red Star and Sickle (Star Tribune). I don’t read that rag, so I don’t know if he still writes for them, or not. Just to let you know, if you haven’t already figured it out, he’s a flaming commie and is one of the biggest proponents of anything big government, unless, of course, if it’s a republican in office.