Rotten Local Government: A Downtown Parking Structure

There is something rotten and foul smelling in the City of Bowling Green. It is this. Ever since it was discussed and then built it had a reeked of crony capitalism and the worst form of governing. It in the end mismanaged funds of the citizens of Bowling Green and promised too much that could never be delivered. It is poorly designed and has been a failed experiment.

Bowling Green did need a parking structure downtown. There were more events down there and several new venues. The Mills Family Reality Group (MR Group) came to provide this service to the city while getting government binds to help fund the proposed development. Everyone was on board. The city gets free parking, the MR Group gets new office space to sell and a place for Hitcents.com to have offices, and the taxpayer gets paid back with interest from the revenue generated. The family who owns MR Group started Hitcents. As with most joint ventures this was a fairy tale and a poorly designed one too.

The new restaurants were touted to be delicious and a new wave in Bowling Green. They even bought an old bastion of Bowling Green dining Mariah's and moved it to anchor the block. It became clear that the parking lot was of poor design. Making it hard to get out and to the restaurants or for that matter just out of the parking structure. They had several car break-ins there and which they did not have security cameras plugged in to catch them even though they had the functioning hardware to film any illegal activity. Problems persisted with not enough traffic to keep the restaurants alive and not renting enough office space.

When MR Group decided to not pay the builders all of the problems were suddenly exposed. The Mills Group disputes that it owes money and that actually money is owed to them see here. It is a big mess and with several million dollars in dispute they can't decide who owes what and who can sue who. At one point the County Attorney Amy Milliken said she was unsure that liens could be placed since the government was involved. Since then there have been liens placed and it looks like the city is trying to get everyone paid.

The city though to make sure everyone gets paid is taking out $30 million more in bonds. To pay off the old bonds and pay money to the builders. This is ridiculous. The city should stay completely out of this mess and really should never have gotten in bed with industry. It made MR Group act more reckless and take risks because the government was funding the bill and screwed the taxpayers out of several million dollars without an offsetting benefit. In the article mentioned above the city government decided to lose $280,000 a year with these new bonds and plans. Yes, we the taxpayers should have to pay for this mismanagement of funds of a private citizen. Let MR Group pay for all the bonds and the costs they incurred building their monument to themselves.

If the city commissioners do decide to vote this plan into existence I will have to support all new candidates for the commissioner positions. It is a gross mismanagement of tax money and they should not continue the problem. I will stand for Mayor Bruce Wilkerson though as he was the lone vote. This was illegal and just shows us the taxpayers again that business should not nor do they need handouts from us. It creates too much drama and loses the taxpayer money that could have gone to building roads or funding schools.

Burger King and Tim Horton's

This merger announcement was a surprise to me because I would not have guessed that Burger King wanted to move out of the US and join with a maker of doughnuts and coffee. It does make sense after looking over the deal. Burger King wants to expand and they can now get good coffee in the store and Tim Horton's can have an easier time expanding to the USA where they have failed before. It also shows that the tax rate in the USA is way too high for corporations. Why stay here when the country next door is offering a lower tax rate and still allows you to trade in the USA. I do not know why we are surprised this movement to leave the country is happening. With the good open borders we have now and quick movement of information and goods its like each country there is no reason to pay more to do the same business when you can save shareholders millions moving.

It is no different from a company moving from New York to Florida or Texas because of the tax benefits. The states try to attract new business and they do that with lower taxes and other benefits. For the USA to keep current business headquarters and attract new ones we will have to have a competitive tax rate of 20% or less and give legal protection to our corporations. Corporations have incentives and act on those incentives. Our government should recognize what incentives businesses have and convince them with better incentives to stay. They should be carrot incentives and not punishments because extra taxes or punishments will only create hatred and resentment. Nice benefit incentives is the way to go.

If we don't see a change soon, I think we could lose even more major companies.

Loss of American Wealth

There is much talk recently from a Federal Reserve report that details the significant loss in assets of American families wealth. This comes from the housing bust, lower wages, stock market crash, and having to dip into retirement and savings to make ends meet. Now this is a tragedy of the highest order for the long term health of our economy. The economy needs savings and investments that will help companies form new products and perform research to make lives better. With less capital and the country being poorer it does not help investment and long term growth.

Instead of thinking the government though should step in because they would only tax us more in hidden ways or openly to "recover" the wealth. We need to instead look to become long-term investors and really focus on saving money again to put toward our future, awesome retirement. Setting aside 10% of income a year to savings could put the American family back toward the road of prosperity and recover the lost wealth. We might have a minor setback on our hands but in the end we will rise above as long as we get back into the habit of smart spending and smart saving.