Up in Santa Claus County, it’s Better to Receive than to
Give
Up in Santa Claus County, it’s Better to Receive than to Give
Editor,
Santa Claus County is not a candidate for casting the first stone at San Benito County. To their disgrace, and their taxpayers’ pain and suffering, our neighbor to the north is:
n Second worst city on the West Coast for “affordable” housing thanks to their socialist “smart growth” (anti-private property, anti-capitalism) policies.
n Big “donee” county in California, subsidized by 37 rural “donor” counties residents’ tax dollars. (San Benito gets back only 11 cents for each dollar that we send to Sacramento. Guess who gets back most of our tax dollars.)
n Only county in the United States whose metropolitan planning organization (VTA) has been indicted by the county’s grand jury for fiscal irresponsibility, governance flaws, and abuse of tax payers.
n County whose leaders have not met or heard of a tax or fee that they would not support.
n Part of largest urban area (together with Salinas Valley) without an intermodal facility on North American continent (and has by its transportation incompetence cause 16.5 million metric tons of CO2 to be exhausted by big rigs into our air)
n One of the major small business killing fields in a state that ranks 49th worst for business-friendliness (but throws every perk known to government to the likes of Wal-Mart, HP, Intel, etc.).
n Snuffs out, suffocates, and strangles 80 percent of small business and very small business within the first five years of life.
n Imposes more “traffic impact fees” (really socialist government impact fees) on a house today than the total purchase price of one 30 years ago.
n Promotes inefficient, insolvent (from conception) and irresponsible public-sector transit of all modes (except air and water – so far)
n Had clout in last Congress to get FTA’s laughable “efficiency standard” relaxed for BART to San Jose extension.
n Has the worst-run transit agency in the U.S. according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology study of all the nation’s transit agencies.
n “Gives away rides on light rail (heavy socialism) that are more expensive than those on luxury liner cruise ships (but passengers pay only 1 percent of fully amortized costs).
Enough? I’m just warming up. But you do have a space limitation, so I’ll stop.
Should San Benito County feel guilty in comparison to Santa Claus County? I don’t think so, unless we adopt their socialist policies.
Joe Thompson
Hollister
