Tallahassee Needs A Change, No More City Commission or Mayoral Deception

The blood is boiling and I may have to call the hope and change potentate himself to send a little stimulus for blood pressure meds!

Check out this from Tallahassee Reports! Unbelievable!

COT Has Been Spending Reserves Each Year Since 2006

To understand where you are, sometimes it is useful to look at where you have been. With the recent approval of a 15% property tax increase to plug the hole in the COT’s General Fund, Tallahassee Reports decided to take a look back.

The first task was to look back at the budgets over the previous years to try and determine if there was an explanation, hidden somewhere in all those numbers, for the tax increase that was required in 2010 to provide the citizens of Tallahassee with the most basic governmental services.

After digging through budgets and actual expenditures for each year since 2006 and talking to city officials, Tallahassee Reports discovered that for 2006, 2007,  and 2008, the COT approved a budget that did not rely on revenues saved in the city deficiencies fund.

However, looking at the actual data for each of those years reveals that sometime during each year, the COT transferred approximately $3,000,000 from the City Deficiencies Fund to pay for core services.

If the use of deficiency funds was a one time policy due to an unanticipated event, this action would not be so noteworthy. However, to continue to rely on a ”savings account” to fund day-to-day operations for core services year-after-year is noteworthy because it explains why the COT found itself in a budget showdown this year. The bill the City Commission had refused to address over the last four years had finally come due in 2009.

The bill came due because the City’s Deficiency Fund, that was being used to fuel the spending the City could not afford, became tapped out. In June 2006, the City’s Deficiency Fund had a balance of $24 million. In June 2009 the balance was $9.5 million.

The research indicates that decisions made, or not made, in 2006, 2007 and 2008, laid the foundation for the tax increase passed in 2009.

It is interesting to note that not one city commissioner, during the most recent budget process, mentioned the fact that over the last three years the budget was not balanced and the City had to spend years of savings.

Your Taxpayer Money Pays for This??

Taxpayers in the Sunshine State certainly put up with their fair share of muck. Tallahassee, with its two state universities and a community college surely sees its share of tax dollar usage.

I’m not a smart man, but I know what waste is.

We have all heard stories of liberal educators infiltrating our colleges and universities by staying on  campus long after degrees have been obtained in order to drill liberal agendas into the subconsciousness of newly graduated high school kids.

While in most cases the the sneaky profs usually keep their intentions secret, we have here in Tallahassee one such educator who doesn’t mind broadcasting his fun views. So if you are a young mind who is just trying to figure out what you believe or if you are an old hat who needs a refresher course, here are T. Rex’s Reasons to be a Republican:

 

 
• If you are radically religious.  
• If you hate gay people.  
• If you hate black people.  
• If you hate women.  
• If you are greedy.  
• If you are full of shit.  
• If you hate foreigners.  
• If you hate children.  
• If you hate poor people.  
• If you think you are better than everyone else.  
• If you think you know best how everyone else should live their life.  
• If you are a gun nut.  
• If you are paranoid about government conspiracies.  
• If you think the government can’t get anything done.  
• If you are a Luddite.  
• If you are scared of the future and think that only bad things are going to happen.  
• If you think jobs are more important than the environment.  
• If you hate liberals.  
• If you hate Communists.  
• If you think the “fouding fathers” never did anything wrong or had any wrong ideas.  
• If you believe in government sanctioned death.  
• If you think war is great.  
• If you think people who don’t make it just didn’t try hard enough.  
• If you think parents own their children.  
• If you think parents have the right to beat their children.  
• If you think men own their wives.  
• If you think men have the right to beat their wives.  
• If you think men have the right to rape their wives.  
• If you think sexual harassment is usually no big deal.  
• If you think women are inferior.  
• If you think foreigners are inferior.  
• If you think minorities are inferior.  
• If you think the Bible is to be taken literally.  
• If you think that most rape accusations are false or trumped up.  
• If you think that most sexual harassment accusations are false or trumped up.  
• If you believe in taking human rights away from others.  
• If you believe “she had it coming.”  
• If you believe American values are the only correct values.  
• If you believe that there is any such concept as “American values.”  
• If you believe that poor people deserve to be poor.  
• If you believe in the myth of the “welfare queen.”  
• If you oppose equal rights for minorities.  
• If you oppose equal rights for homosexuals.  
• If you oppose equal rights for women.  
• If you think marriage is a “special right.”  
• If you wish that people with different ideologies than yours were dead (thanks J. Fairfield)  
• If you send annoying hate-filled e-mail messages to people who create humorous web pages (thanks J. Fairfield)

 

Now I don’t know if you qualify as a Republican by meeting just one of these “Reasons”, but I guess it would be a good start. If you want to be a really good Republican, you should probably shoot for more than one of these. If you are interested in tying in the Florida tax dollars to this list, look no further than the campus of Tallahassee Community College and the History and Social Science Division, where T. Rex or Kenneth Quinnell educates young minds in the field of Political Science. This list came from his website T. Rex’s Guide To Life which has since been relegated to the archives of the internet now that he is busy with sponsoring the TCC College Democrats and heading up the Leon County Young Democrats all while being the founder of the Florida Progressive Coalition.

I’m sure TCC President Bill Law loves having someone on staff who feels that a couple of reasons to be a Republican are that “you believe that poor people deserve to be poor.” and “you think men have the right to rape their wives.” That is quality education from a State employee. I hope parents think twice about paying for their kids to attend Quinnell’s section of Political Science.

Muckraking Across The Home of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler**

The world we live in sure is tough sometimes. The country we live in is not really as tough as the world., though many would have you believe that the rest of the world is much better than the good old US of A. Our elected officials take us for granted and then blame us for their problems. When I say politicians I mean Republican and Democrat and any member of the many minor third parties out there. The key for everyone to remember is that you cannot trust a politician, ANY politician.

The thing that really burns me up are people who use their postions of authority, influence or governance of any degree to mold the minds of the uninformed into the mindless non-thinkers that many in this country, state and municipality have become.  Tallahassee, being the capitol of Florida is home to a wide variety of people from all walks of life. We are home to massive state, county and city employment, two major universities and a community college. Besides public service and public education, we are home to a thriving private business community, a popular and growing arts community, on top of all that we are 35-70 miles away from the beach depending on the quality of beach you seek.

We also have many problems and issues that should be addressed, that’s where I come in. You can call me TallyMuck and you have stumbled upon my blog The Tallahassee Muckraker. Now I know what you are saying, “great another blowhard who is pissed at the world and needs to vent”. Well I’m not pissed at the world and sometimes I’m the biggest blowhard you will ever meet and yes I need to vent about it, yet what I vent about may just be of interest to some of the one or two people who might stumble upon my humble blog. If you do make it here consider yourself fortunate.

I will probably touch on all sorts of things here politics, education, culture and even the fact that I survived acid rain.

If you choose to peruse, welcome. If you choose to turn your nose up and runaway screaming, have fun!

** If you have ever spent anytime in Tallahassee, you may have heard the awesome rumor that Steven Tyler of Aerosmith went to high school at Leon, Lincoln or Rickards ( hence the “take me back to South Tallahassee” line from their musical composition “The Last Child”) Well he didn’t but it was fun to think he did!