Double your pleasure

January 18, 2014

These slides from the city web site show us the cost of selling bonds instead of saving up our money and paying cash:

2013bTaxableBonds

2013aTaxExemptBonds

So far we have sold two types of bonds to finance the ball park.  We sold 30 year taxable bonds totaling $15,660,000 and 25 year tax exempt bonds totaling $45,125,000.

That comes to $60,785,000.

What will it cost us by the time we have paid them off?  The number comes to $137,286,965.10.

That means that we will actually pay more than 2.25 times what we financed.

Why can’t our governments develop a pay as we go strategy? We would get at least twice as much for our money.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Bring the senate in line

January 12, 2014

At the national level I would like to see us repeal the 17th amendment to our constitution.

At one time the states had a real voice in the national government.  Senators were appointed by their state legislatures.  If a senator wanted to be reappointed at the end of his term, he needed to be mindful of what his state wanted him to do at the national level.

The 17th amendment changed that and now senators are elected by the voters of their state.  A state legislature would have a much better chance of influencing  a senator who is off the reservation than would individual voters.

I wrote about this in Introduction, my first post to this blog.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

2 Comments | Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

End the privileges

January 5, 2014

I would like to see to it that our federal employees (including elected officials) have to live with the same laws that the citizens do.

There should be no special  privileges for them.  If we have to follow OSHA rules (or those of any other law) so should they.

They should have the same health care coverage we do and should belong to the same retirement system that we do.  Their facilities like government restaurants, barber shops, and banks should be fully paid for by the people that use them, not the taxpayers.

For that matter I don’t think that congressmen, senators, or the president and vice president  should have government funded retirement accounts.

It seems to me that this would need to be a constitutional amendment since any law that one session of congress passes could be overturned in some later session.

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

New Year Wishes

January 1, 2014

I hope that all of you survived the festivities last night and will be ready to tackle the new year tomorrow.

My wish for each of you next year is good health, good government, and the opportunity to prosper.

The authors here at the blog have been thinking about running a series next year about what we would like to see changed in our various levels of government.

Starting at the top we first plan to address our three organizing documents, the U. S. Constitution, the Texas Constitution, and the El Paso City Charter.

Feel free to write up an article and submit it for posting on this blog.  Feel free to communicate privately with me at brutusep@yahoo.com.

Thank you for your continued readership and support.

Happy New Year!

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Working overtime

December 27, 2013

Our current county judge was quoted recently in the Times:

“…we can’t afford to go backward now, as there’s still too much work to do.”

Work means money

The county judge is entertaining tearing down our 1980’s jail building, building a new county administration building, and expanding the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority as a few of her projects that will require “work”.

Remember that this year the commissioner’s court voted to spend $160 million to remodel our county hospital (which the hospital’s chief executive officer claims is profitable) and to build health clinics that will compete with private physicians.

I believe it was the city manager that claimed that the county judge was part of our local “dynamic trio”.

Three of a kind

The trio is evidently our new congressman (who has already had a brush with the House Ethics Committee), our tax and spend county judge, and a former city representative who lost the election for mayor by 74%.

I like the congressman and think that we should give him a chance.  He has hopefully learned that elected officials are not above the law, at least at the national level.  He’s not in El Paso anymore.

Our former city representative hopefully learned that giving the voters a say in what goes on might help you get elected.

Since we should be enjoying baseball in the spring remember that three strikes make an out.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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