Cleveland - And Good News In A Magazine!

Hey, a magazine - The Nation - with an article on Cleveland that’s positive and hopeful – about the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry and its promising help for our city. Headlined “The Cleveland Model,” it suggests a possibility for other hard-pressed cities, too. With Cleveland as the model.

The article notes, “Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of large scale worker - and community - benefitting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the city’s most dramatically impacted by the nation’s decaying economy.”

Take note Forbes magazine editors!

The enterprise has received some notice here but The Nation article puts it in a broader economic picture.

The laundry is worker-owned, of industrial size and environmentally motivated. The Cleveland Foundation and other foundations have put money into the venture along with the city and banks.

The aim is to give distressed neighborhoods an opportunity to have a workplace jobs along with ownership and provide a needed service by serving the health care industry with something it requires.

It’s a start with possibilities of other ventures mentioned by the authors. You can read the piece here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100301/alperowitz_et_al

Silly Season Opens in County Reform Campaign

Okay, the nonsense begins. County reform just took a bad turn with the report in Crain’s Cleveland Business that candidate for County chief executive Matt Dolan wants to cut the County sales tax after backing the quarter percent increase for the Medical Mart deal.

The report in Crain’s comes from a speech Dolan gave at the City Club. Apparently, Dolan didn’t say what he would cut if he reduced the tax by a quarter percent.

How convenient. Cut taxes but don’t say what you’ll cut to do it. That’s really reformist.

And he starts talking about cutting taxes before he even has an opportunity to know what he’s talking about. He just moved into the County. Already he knows best what we need.

Dolan, a newcomer to the County, apparently shoots before he thinks.

It doesn’t take much thinking to be a demagogue.

Dolan, a member of the wealthy family (billionaires) that owns the Cleveland Indians, Cablevision and much more in New York City, just moved over the border in into Cuyahoga County this year. Otherwise, of course, he couldn’t run for the job.

To make up revenue, I’d suggest that the County add a County admission tax on sporting events. Surely, a Dolan couldn’t oppose that.

Dolan moved from Russell Township in Geauga County over the border to Chagrin Falls, just an ordinary Cuyahoga County community where he could learn how the other half lives.

Dolan was once a Democrat now is a Republican, but likely won’t point that out very often. And the Plain Dealer isn’t likely to remind us of his shifty nature or his recent immigration to our home.

Talk about carpetbaggers.

The Crain’s piece by Jay Miller can be found here:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20100222/FREE/100229975

County reform is going to be so much fun. But don’t count on any reform. Not any helpful reform, that is.

Overlooking The Obvious With Brent Larkin

How pathetic can you get? Brent Larkin Sunday uses quotes from four City Council members to tell us that Cleveland is in serious, serious trouble.

And as a center piece of the argument he uses the city’s $350-million mistake on the lake – Browns Stadium – to highlight somehow Cleveland’s problems.

As Mike Polensek points out it has no roof. Does he think with a roof it would be filled with activity? The city now has the right to use the stadium it pays for NINE times a year. Do you see it being used? No way.

Cleveland - with Brent Larkin, who actually wanted to be the PD sports editor - and the Plain Dealer, paid close attention to sports in the last two decades. To the neglect of so much. Even now the sports pages are the largest section of the paper. And typically with fewer ads than other sections.

Dumbing down the dumb is tradition at the newspaper. It excels at it.

Anything the sports moguls wanted they got and get. Didn’t mean anything that some of what they got came from the Cleveland schools. Didn’t mean anything that other needs were pushed aside.

What was important to our leaders for decades was that the entertainment via sports, rock and roll and other venues got what they wanted. They got the money. We paid the price.

We still pay.

Brent has been the go to guy in politics and civic life at the PD. He favored every one of these moves. Without reservation. With no discrimination as to value. Expressing no reservations with how it was done. No restraint on cost. Just do it!

Now he shouldn’t complain about results, or get others to do it for him.

Cleveland is what it is not because of the form of government – a city mayor and city legislative body.

These people don’t make the big decisions. They simply ratify what the business, corporate and foundation communities want.

Rarely does the public get involved. Usually the people are simply frozen out. But sometimes a tax is just too much for them. As with County Commissioner Vince Campanella’s desire to build a domed stadium with a property tax. That was the 1980s agenda. It got clobbered near two to one by voters. That ruined Campanella, a Republican, and his desire to be governor. But the game wasn’t over for the corporate leadership. Oh, no.

The usual suckers – voters – weren’t buying a property tax. That didn’t stop the Cleveland business establishment. Find another tax they’ll swallow. It took years – with Cleveland Tomorrow shifting its sights from the Cleveland economy to building sports facilities – to bring forth Gateway. Whoop-de-do.

A sales tax on booze and cigarettes. Hell, the little people pay that. Better than a property tax in the end.

We saved our sports teams. We lost our city.

Was that a great deal or what? Suburbanites get to drive into Cleveland, park at a tax subsidized garage, walk into a tax subsidized sports stadium or arena. But don’t get to drink the water.

Changing the form of government is meaningless unless you change the character of our civic and corporate culture.

And no one is even talking about doing that.

Richest Get Richer But Pay Less In Federal Tax

It's no surprise but it's good to have the real data. The top 400 earners saw their tax rates drop as their income soared. No one gives us this information better than David Cay Johnston. He says that these top income households have "soared to a new record high."

"In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its web site without announcement that were discovered February 16," he wrote.

He continues: "The figures came at the peak of the last economic cycle and show that widely published reports in major newspapers asserting that the richest Americans are losing relative ground and 'becoming poorer' are not supported by the official income data."

The report also shows that a number of the top 400 paid an effective tax rate of zero to 10 percent. In other words, you probably paid a high rate on your city income tax.

Now wouldn't we all like income taxes in April to be so nicely priced for us?

Only 33 of the top 400, he reports, paid an effective tax rate of 30 to 35 percent, which is the maximum (or should I say, Republican) federal tax rate.

This data was first made available during President Bill Clinton's administration. It has been made available again by President Barack Obama. Guess what? It was made inaccessible by President George Bush. Surprised?

Cay Johnston is the former tax reporter for the New York Times. He teaches now at Syracuse University.

His entire take is available here:

http://www.tax.com/taxcom/features.nsf/Articles/0DEC0EAA7E4D7A2B852576CD00714692?OpenDocument

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.