Two liberal cities, falling short of cash. They can help make up that shortfall the honest way - cutting spending and lowering taxes to incentivize business and personal spending - or they can act like any other desperate, common criminal, and take out the gun and cruise for easy targets.
These cities are run by Democrats, so what do you think they choose? Yeah, exactly. Not sure which is more offensive, but let's start with New York, who is suing to collect "back rent" on...the Twin Towers:
Ghoulish bid to slap tax on vanished WTC
One of the weirdest developments in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack is being played out in an astounding tax court battle.
More than eight years after 9/11, the city is demanding that developer Larry Silverstein fork over almost $35 million in commercial-rent taxes on the Twin Towers and two other buildings that no longer exist.
On May 27, 2007, the city's Finance Department sent Silverstein a bill for $34,866,549 -- which included penalties and interest -- on his four trade center buildings.
City officials asserted that "the airspace that had been surrounded by the buildings still existed," and, since Silverstein had the right to rebuild, he had to pay up.
Silverstein pointed out that the government seized control of the entire site after 9/11, so he could hardly rebuild....
Can the government still tax you on assets they have seized? Silverstein won the first round in court, but New York vows to continue the battle to have its cake and eat it to....
And in DC, an outraged city government is helping to protect its citizens by...confiscating cell phone minutes?
Washington, D.C. is suing AT&T because some customers who buy its prepaid calling cards don't always use up all the minutes. The city isn't suing on behalf of the customers, of course (though even that would be sort of silly). It's suing on the notion that when a customer doesn't use up all of a product or service they purchase, the remainder belongs to the government. So they want the company to pay what the minutes are worth to the D.C. government....
What next - will we be forced to turn over unused balances on gift cards to our local governments?
Unbelievable. And when developers refuse to build in New York City, or when cell phone providers refuse to offer plans in Washington, DC, it'll be because those big, evil companies are racist, don't you know...
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