From Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address:
Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Even back then, rich white guys didn’t want to be taxed.
Verily I say unto thee, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” –Jesus
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“rich white guys”, it is good to see that racism is alive and well.
What other distinctions do you make corresponding to a person’s race?
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Snowflake.
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Jesus was telling people to pay their taxes. He had no interest in their earthly money; Cesar could have that. I think Jefferson was telling people that governments should control their taxing by reminding them that taxes come from the people who need the money to eat. You suggest his motive was simply that he, as a rich white guy, didn’t want to pay taxes himself? He was probably no socialist – that’s for sure. Socialist believe that the poor should hand over all their money, and then after taking their cut and keeping an elite wealthy, the government will give back whatever money is left to be used for whatever the government determines worthy to spend funds on. Some Europeans love socialism, most Americans hate it. Europeans worship their royalty, constantly fight among themselves, and would probably destroy the world if left to their own devices. Do we want to be just like Europe?
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Too bad that you paid less attention to your US and World History classes than you do to college drop out Rush Limbaugh and the talking air heads of Fox News.
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The El Paso capitalist oligarch cartel believes that everyone else, especially the poor and middle class, should hand over all their money and any property coveted by the oligarch cartel while the members of the cartel members are awarded tax breaks. After taking their cut of the taxes for their ballparks and arenas and subsidies for their office towers and real estate developments, the government in partnership with the oligarchs use the rest of the money for whatever else the cartel and its government puppets choose to spend the money on. That includes shiny objects like waterparks to hypnotize the masses and divert their attention away from the grand theft taking place. Do we really want to be like Mexico and Russia?
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The Democrat party has several leading candidates that are Socialists who denounce capitalism and promote spending trillions of dollars on climate change. The single self-described capitalist has announced that she will unilaterally end student debt as well as dedicate the entire department of justice to punishing her political opponent, if she wins.
Robert Francis O’Rourke, quite possibly Joe Biden’s Hispanic running mate (true, Biden said it, I am merely repeating it) described his process for gun confiscation and unilateral repeal of the 2nd amendment.
Frugality isn’t the issue, the American way of life is. Hypocrisy, too, as it seems to be a liberal virtue. Liberals are literally screaming that the Constitution is on the line while all of their spoken concepts are serious violations thereof.
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Beto has even said he would be open to being Vice President. He didn’t have much of a platform or really any ideas, but I bet he could light his own farts and people would be impressed with his Kennedyesque aroma.
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If you’re concerned about hypocrisy, why not place part of the blame on the high-profile Republicans who have spearheaded running up the city’s debt for their own personal benefit? The ballpark, the recent Foster land deal, the tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks given to Hunt and Weststar for their downtown tower, breaks for businesses that purchase or lease property from local developers, real estate development infrastructure funded by taxpayers instead of developers, and the list goes on and on. Greed and hypocrisy are not limited to one party.
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The politicians, public officials do absolutely NOTHING for the PEOPLE of El Taxo.. Their sole purpose, “Job” is to do whatever is “necessary”, whatever they are ask, told, to provide for the MILLIONAIRES, BILLIONAIRES$$$$ that OWN them. THEY lie, deny, deceive the PEOPLE. THEY take all they can get and then take more. And yes THEY will take that last “Loaf of bread” from families. There are virtually few to no Police working the streets and yet the POLITICIANS buy NEW Patrol vehicles. They, Tommy Gonzalez get some kind of pay-off, profit from that? Inherent corruption.
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Look, don’t get lost. To balance a budget you need to bring in more money than you spend. If you spend more than you bring in you are going to create debt. Debt creates insecurity. This is what the people that are in charge of the money in El Paso have done. I own a house here in El Paso for 26 years, I have paid more taxes on the house than what I paid for it. The taxes are close to the mortgage I paid. My sister in Los Angeles has lived 35 years in her home and her taxes are 1000. a year. That is a tax. Whatever this city is doing is not working. The way I see it, it is a great cloud of greed mixed with incompetence has formed over the city and is choking off the oxygen. Besides without input from people that are not millionaires ( the majority) how can the supposed leaders know what the recipe is? Read the book Who rules El Paso ?It is short and well written. Costs ten dollars on Amazon. Since we hardly ever have any real news here and have to read about our city and it’s players in Dallas papers. Imagine if our recipe had some truth to it. Thanks to those who wrote it. God bless America and my right to say so.
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If you bring in more than you spend, that is not balanced either. How about spending equal to tax revenue. Now we’re talking! If government entities were to over tax and have extra money, then it would be unnecessary taxation. Balanced equals equal. 🙂
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The general fund used to be a reserve for surprise expenses. Now they go to COs because that’s tapped out. Having some level of reserves in government is good so slight surplus isn’t an imbalance. That said if revenues exceed expenses (say, in a fantasy world where economic development actually worked here), the logical next step is to lower taxes. It amazes me how many people don’t seem to understand that concept. The idea that surplus should trigger more spending is wrong on so many levels.
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But, but, the politicians, Public Officials, the Mayor, City Council, Commissioners, Tommy Gonzalez, Juan Cabrera, the “Outsiders” that “Own” them, that run El Taxo, would never, ever allow the PEOPLE of El Taxo to have any tax cuts. If by some miracle there was a “Surplus”, ALL of them would immediately fabricate list, more list of what THEY could buy, give away. to get rid of that “Surplus”. There is NO “rainy day fund” in El Taxo. Only toilets to flush money, OUR money. Unfortunately there is NO President Trump in El Taxo to put the PEOPLE FIRST, to cut taxes, cut spending, create JOBS, do what is BEST for the PEOPLE.. The people of El Taxo will always be easy pickings for “Carpet Baggers”, passing through, like Juan Cabrera and Tommy Gonzalez, the “Consultants”, “Financial Advisers”, “Friends and Family Contractors”, etc. People of El Taxo don’t work to “Get ahead”. They simply work to pay that NEXT Property Tax Bill, the NEXT tax increase. The key word of this discussion is “Principles”. The people that run El Taxo, take from the PEOPLE, don’t have “Principles”. No Ethics, no Integrity, no HONOR.
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There needs to be a full audit of the city and it’s financial reality
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You’re sure that was Jefferson and not Mini Mike?
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How could Paul Foster commit these errors? Wasn’t he a accountant? Do you think this was his intention to step on the gas and bankrupt El Paso? Will he run away now to Mexico with his wife? Stayed tuned
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