Corporate welfare-plank-MacYipper419

==Links==
* Corporate welfare
==Rant, in part==
===Source: http://web.archive.org/20070502223822/macyapper.blogspot.com/2007/03/mc-rove-edition.html from March 2007===
Mayor Poopy Pants and his
tax abatement proposal. He has said on at least two occassions that what
the City needs to do is offer property tax abatements for people
willing to purchase new condos in Pittsburgh. 
I have a little problem
with that. For years and years, my neighbors and I have toiled away in
"transitional" neighborhoods like the North Side -- renovating,
investing, and taking our lives into our hands -- without such tax
breaks. To the contrary, the properties have been re-assessed more than
most in Allegheny County because of the "substantial modification"
clause in the tax code. 
Ergo, as pioneers and hangers on in the
re-birth of blighted neighborhoods, we'd like to know where our hand
out is? 
We'd like to know why people who can afford $300,000+ condos
should get a 10-year free ride on the backs of the people who have
ALWAYS thought it was a good idea to invest in this City. 
I know Opie
hasn't really thought about this and I'm certain like most things, he
doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, it's just something he
overheard Peduto say at the big boy table over lunch and now he's
parroting it. 
It's just that I don't see why taxpayer money needs to
pad the wallets of developers (they are, of course, another vested
interest in an abatement as they will sell their units faster,
presumably) and people who can afford pricey dahntahn condos. Hate to
be a narrow-minded yinzer on this, but the developer of 151 First Side
already had $1.5 million of taxpayer money handed over to him by Mayor
O'Connor prior to construction (at a time when said developer was
already a half a million in arrears on property taxes for OTHER city
property he owned) of that project and now they want to offer the
purchasers a free ride? Get real. 
Here's a hypothetical (or not)
question: If reducing taxes will provide the inducement needed to bring
buyers to the market in Pittsburgh, would it then stand to reason that
property taxes could be lowered across the board to provide an even
greater inducement to an even larger buying public? 
Little wonder that
Pittsburgh sat out the biggest residential real estate boom in the
history of the United States.
Regards,
MacYipper 419
category:Planks_from_elsewhere