The “Major Problem” that is facing Our City Council and the Board of Education is the promised budget cuts to our cities by the Governor of our state.
Gov. Rell has announced that she plans to cut #280 million dollars from the state budget state wide which will require our school district to seek more funding from the city Council.
Not knowing just how much this will affect our city since we do not know just how much the exact cut will be rendered to our school district.
It is therefore a must for as many citizens taxpayers to attend the planned budget hearing scheduled for 7 P. M. next Monday January 12th.
It is assumed that the Mayor, Council members, and the district board members will be in attendance for this conclave.
We all know that with the adverse economic problems that our taxpayers are currently facing with unemployment and the higher cost of living for their families’ up keep they can ill afford an increase to their property taxes that will occur if the council approves the board’s request and then to subsequently get hit with the reduction of state funding for education as promised by the governor requiring more money from the taxpayers.
State representative Tim O’Brien has been working fervently at the legislature attempting to secure the necessary state funding for our school district he must be commended for his untiring efforts with this issue.
What happened to the layoffs and furloughs that the Mayor talked about for city hall employees? Would having city and Board of Ed employees make concessions save the budget?
ReplyDeleteI suppose that the city hall employees believe they deserve a big raise this year while the rest of us are struggling just to keep out houses.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the Superintendent and other school administrators should follow the lead of the North Haven Superintendent of Schools who just refused to accept her 3% raise, even though her contract grants it to her and it is rightfully hers to take. That is truly a selfless act during a time when the taxpayers can't afford to pay any additional taxes. This woman is truly a public servant.
ReplyDeleteCuts Will Be Deep and Everywhere, Rell Says
ReplyDeleteGovernor Rell said that the cuts to education funding will be "massive," so how can New Britain move forward with a huge increase in the school budget?
The only way will be through "massive" increases in property taxes to pay for the budget increase due to the reduction in state funding at the same time as Dr. Kurtz proposes several million in increases to the school budget.
Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat who plans to run against Rell in the next election, attacked the Governor today for not proposing huge cuts in staff costs through layoffs and furloughs of state employees. Ironically, the Governor announced today that state corrections officers will be receiving a 3% pay increase on the same day that she announced massive cuts in funding to municipalities and local boards of education.
One thing is clear, Dr. Kurtz' budget proposal needs to be rejected as long as it includes even $1 in increases. The school board should be looking for ways to cut the budget, and the largest cost is staff. I understand that many classrooms have as few as 10 to 12 students for one teacher. Combining classes would allow for a reduction in the number of teachers that are needed. Laying off teachers is one way to bring the out of control school budget back to some control. Failing to do so will result in huge increases to the taxes paid by single homeowners, and this is not something we should be planning in this troubled economy. Many of you will either have to walk away from your home, or work a second job just to pay your taxes!
Glenn Beck: Who's to blame...a Repression and/or Depression?
ReplyDeleteGLENN BECK:01/06/09 - Today I want to lay the case out to you, because we have to know what happened to the economy of the U.S.A. You have to know that they are printing money as we speak at the Treasury. You have to know what you know and know who caused it, how did it start, and you've got to bring yourself up to speed rapidly to be able to share with your friends the truth so they know how to make a decision on which one of these candidates, if either of them, was responsible.
Which one of these candidates can help us get out of the mess.
Yesterday Barack Obama said, and I quote: Senator McCain bragged about how as chairman of the commerce committee in the Senate he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, I can say to Senator McCain, nice job, nice job. He was in Vegas and he said, quote: I will crack down on predatory lenders, the all too often target the African American community, the one that targets the Hispanic community with tough new penalties that treat mortgage fraud like the crime that it is. And the crowd went wild.
It is important that you hear, "I will crack down on predatory lenders." Have you heard that before? The people that often target the African American community, target the Hispanic community with tough new penalties. Got it? Okay.
Today I'm going to lay out the case for you in the next 10 minutes and I think you're going to understand who is responsible for this credit crunch and this credit crisis in the USA, and you ain't gonna like the answer, but this I believe is a big part of the answer.
The Community Reinvestment Act. It was started, it was a "Feel good" measure back in the 1970s and Jimmy Carter started it, "We've got to invest in our communities again." Well, in 1992 Boston's Federal Reserve did a study. They funded this study and in this study they found subtle racism in the banking system, discrimination in lending. This is again from the Boston race study, discrimination in lending. There were a couple of things in there that were stark.
For instance, they showed a white guy and a black guy. Both went in to buy a house for $60,000. The black man didn't get the loan even though his assets, his net worth was stated as $10 million. The bank didn't give a $60,000 loan to a guy who had $10 million in assets.
How did that happen other than you didn't want to lend to a black man. Well, the Fed used this study and they brought it to congress and congress just latched onto this thing. Unfortunately within just a couple of months, another group, another university came in and looked at this study and said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we've looked at the raw data; these are mistakes in here.
First of all, the analysis is wrong, but the facts are wrong. In the one that everybody was using, the black guy with the $10 million in assets that didn't get a loan, it wasn't $10 million. When you looked at the raw data, it was $1,000. He had $1,000 in assets.
So the subtle proof that was left to stand, because nobody went back and revised it. Nobody went back and said, oh, well, okay, we have to throw this study out because it is so wrong. They just let the subtle proof, and here was the subtle proof.
The discrimination in lending, see if any of these sound familiar in 1992. Discrimination in lending was that banks wouldn't make loans in low income areas. So if you were in Detroit and you had a house that was selling for $100,000 last year and is now worth $10,000, the banks were like, no, we're not going to loan anybody any money; it's a bad section of town. The other subtle proof, banks had minimum lending requirements.
So in other words, they could say we only lend $10,000 because there's no money in it for us at $2,000. We only lend 20 because there's no money in $10,000. That was racism. The application fee was racist. The fact that you had to actually say "Could you verify your income" was racist. That was 1992.
In 1992 again they wanted to revise the Community Reinvestment Act and they wanted to put in all of these penalties if you were being racist. Now, under the CRA, the banks had to convince a set of bureaucracies that they weren't engaging in discrimination, and the discrimination could be called by anybody. You could just raise your hand and say they're discriminating.
ACORN was a big one that said discrimination. But again what counted as discrimination after 1992, arbitrary or outdated criteria. That outdated or arbitrary criteria income level, income verification, credit history and savings history. Do any of those things sound familiar? So to satisfy the demands of what now had been passed into law, lenders developed a sub prime mortgage.
Didn't have sub prime before. That way potential borrowers who couldn't qualify for the 30 year traditional fixed mortgage with 20% down-payment had a way, so the bank wasn't being racist. In 1994 less than 5% of mortgage were sub prime.
By 2006 20% of new mortgages were sub prime. Politicians and the Fed, they were excited about this, this is fantastic. It's a new mortgage that puts families in homes, gives them a piece of the American dream. How many times did you hear people say that?
In 1994 Janet Reno said the Justice Department was going to go after banks that were racists. They said today's actions demonstrate we will attack lending discrimination wherever it is and whatever form it appears. No loan is exempt. No bank is immune. For those who thumb their nose at us, I promise vigorous enforcement.
Sounds a little like Barack Obama today. Just so you know, there were no fines. You didn't even have to report this information to the government, but here's what happened. If you didn't, you were called racist. That's your fine. You were called a racist bank. If you wanted to open a branch, if ACORN decided to come against you, they would protest your opening up of a branch in that area and they would say you were a racist lender.
If you wanted to do a merger, you couldn't do a merger because you hadn't played ball. You hadn't done the low interest rate, the mortgage with no income verification. Those in Washington stood in your way on any business you wanted to do.
Why do you think when J.P. Morgan and Chase teamed up, when they merged together, why do you think the first thing they did when they announced that merger was to make a gigantic donation to ACORN? It was extortion. Everybody was excited about this. Alan Greenspan came out in support of the mortgage options. He said Americans, consumers I'm quoting might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed rate mortgages.
The chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac made affordable housing a priority and created new mortgage products that allowed for lower down payments. This was in 2004. Ten years, ten years after they enacted all of these laws to make sure that nobody was being discriminatory.
President Bush in 2004 launched his down payment initiative which provided assistance to low income families to help them with their initial down payment, which was quickly followed by his zero down payment initiative which eliminated the requirement of a minimum 3% down payment for FHA insured single family mortgages. If you were a first time buyer, zero down.
In 2005 Barack Obama said it's not good enough that the real estate market is prospering for some. Everyone has to be able to get affordable housing. Barney Frank said no one wants to be called out for racism by opposing any of these requirements. In 2007 Barney Frank went on to say the data showing serious housing discrimination in the granting of mortgages in Boston is very troubling. The serious housing discrimination in Boston is troubling and must be addressed.
Same year, our CT Senator Chris Dodd proudly took credit for helping pass a revised Community Reinvestment Act with the help of Reverend Jesse Jackson. Earlier this year Senator John McCain responded to a question by Larry Kudlow. He said, "Absolutely there were people that predicted that the Community Reinvestment Act might lead to reckless and unsound lending practices just short of a fill in the amount of I don't like to use the word quota, but certain percentages of a home of the bank's lending practices, it has to be reexamined. It has to be judged by its effect.
We need to find out how this particular system affected the overall insolvency of the subprime lending issue and I think I'm not saying it needs to be repealed but it certainly needs to be examined and what its effects have been and we'll be able to figure that out. Really.
As Nancy Pelosi says, along with Harry Reid, that we need to create yet another government agency to handle these situations. That we need another federal agency now to help bail out the people that got these loans because there wasn't any oversight. I contend it was the politicians that pushed people into this situation. It was the politicians that made this possible, and it was not just the Democrats. It was the Republicans as well.
Yes, the Community Reinvestment Act started the problem, however, it wasn't until Sen. Phil Gramm pushed through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act through Senate on Nov. 4th 1999 that the holes through which the big banks were able to really let their greed run rampant opened up.
This Act, called the Financial Services Modernization Act, opened up competition among banks, securities companies and insurance companies, by repealing part of the Glass-Steagall Act.
The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited a bank from offering investment, commercial banking and insurance services. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate.
And they did. So here we are today....at Sub-Prime mortgage crisis and beyond.
This is the guy that McCain would likely make his Treasury Secretary. Glenn Beck is absolutely spot on.The politicians in Washington are the principal cause of the mess. Thanks to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Andrew Cuomo, ACORN, Jesse Jackass, all of the political hacks who made millions pretending to be captains of finance at Fannie Mae, and a cast of thousands of race-baiting nincompoops, the United States system of providing credit for home ownership was twisted and perverted to generate a vastly higher percentage of bad loans.
What the politicians did was change a system that produced, say, $1 of crap for every $100 of new mortgage loans to a system that produced, say, $10 of crap for every $100 of new mortgage loans (just to pick round numbers).
What the “greedy Wall Streeters” do is financial intermediation. In other words, their activity determines who ends up holding the $10 of crap produced by the changes in the system demanded by the Washington politicians.
I agree all high paid contracted administrative employees should absolutely forego increases this year. Union negotiations to press
ReplyDeletethis if it doesn't happen on a volunteer basis should start now.
City employees should be on a no overtime no increase this year too.
This is happening all over the private sector and each of us who retains their job through 2009 should be thankful.
Taxpayers cannot foot the losses to
state funding. Although the mill rate went down following re-assesments the 5 year re-assessment
still raised my property taxes $50.00 per month. With no raise and an increase to our health insurance there is no room for more
tax increases on our home.
And it continues. Recently a young
ReplyDelete"white" family that rented from me for more than 7 years after filing personal bankruptcy qualified for a home at 185,000? I had been charging them $750.00 for 6 years and the last year $775.00. They never paid on the firt and struggled to deliver their payment by the 10th each month. Now they
have "arrived" to a new mortgage payment of $1800.00 per month!!! They were thrilled with the "no money" down program offered through
HUD with closing costs they were in
the home for under 7K and on to the
"freedom" of home ownership. So I sold the rental property and the First Time Home Buyer that purchased the home used the No Money Down program too. But in this case he asked for the closing costs to be returned to him at closing. I agreed and on the day of the closing he received a check
for $750.00 after buying the house
because the closing costs were less
than estimated!!! He is in the house and collected a check for buying it!!! These two scenarios
happened between August 2008 and December 2008 during the big bank
lending "pull back".
I have always been frugal, saved 6 months of living expenses etc I have purchased several properties in my time. I have never been granted a loan for less than a 10%
down payment and always waited for
that "approval letter". The banks have always required in depth info
and made me feel like I would have to put my first born up as collateral.
The loan programs that have gotten our country into this economic crisis are just another form of Welfare paid for by the rest of us
that do the right thing. If you think Washington is working on turning this crisis around think again they are only tightening up
on those that do the right thing and businesses that fuel our economy.
I guess "anonymous" isn't going to be happy with the Barney Frank plan to force lending institutions to give car loans to people who can't afford the cars? A large portion of the $775 billion bailout has been planned for backing car loans under threat of criminal prosecution, similar to what the Clinton Administration did with mortgages for people who couldn't afford them. We didn't learn with the mortgages, so now we are going to use tax dollars to buy cars for people who can't afford them!
ReplyDeleteThat's right, not happy at all. These programs were not developed
ReplyDeleteunder Ronald Reagan or George Bush
Sr. No, Bill Clinton that's because
Democrats and Welfare programs go
hand in hand.
Cars for people that can't afford them! That is an economic stimulas
ReplyDeletepackage. Dealers sell cars and lots of tow truck driver positions will open up lowering the unemployment rate in every state. LOL
Start furloughs of the employees at the Board of Education in order to reduced their budget.
ReplyDeleteTaxpayers buying cars for people who can't afford them is meant to support the union jobs of the auto workers who are making over $60,000 a year plus free college tuition for all their children, but they describe themselves as "struggling with the rest of Americans." They are just trying to protect the unions so they can donate more millions of dollars to the Democrats, and you are footing the bill for it. Get used to it!
ReplyDeleteAt least Governor Rell did the right thing and rejected the 3% raise for corrections officers! So much for the political power of A.F.S.C.M.E. Council 4!
ReplyDeleteBetter Luck next time!
The Board Of Education has neglected to reflect honestly the true adverse conditions that exist economically with our taxpayers with their increasing their annual budget by 7.8 millions.
ReplyDeleteWhen they too should be making layoffs at their administration level as well with the teachers rather than proposing adding teachers.