Quoted in "Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless. It’s Not Going Well. A proposed tax hike before the city on Tuesday has become a referendum on governance in the fast-changing Texas capital" (NYT).
The proposed tax increase, known as Proposition Q, has stirred a sprawling debate over the many complaints that Austin residents have had about their rapidly changing city, where high-rise buildings now dominate the skyline of what was once a quirky college town....
Look, if you want to Keep Austin Weird, as they say, you've got to keep voting against the self-interest of the rich — and "rich" means anyone who can afford to buy even a small house in your weird town.
“The sort of extreme YIMBY-ism that Austin’s been experiencing is failing, and the pushback against Prop Q is, in effect, a pushback against those failed policies,” said Robin Rather, a proposition opponent who used the acronym for “yes, in my backyard,” to describe policies that support growth and housing development. “Everybody loves Austin, but only some people can afford to stay here,” said Ms. Rather, a lifelong Democrat, environmentalist and the daughter of the former CBS News anchor Dan Rather.
They've lost Dan Rather's daughter!
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78 comments:
The queer conundrum is the Ouroboros phenomenon of progressive prices through shared responsibility and wielding liberal license with indiscretion. Hoisted by their own Fani... on their own petard.
Every time they see a problem they try to solve it with more government. Then they expand the definition of the problem so now they need even more government. Meanwhile the core functions get neglected.
Who are they? Our friends on the left, of course.
Since it’s Austin, I assume both sides are lefty and wrong.
"but must abide by Texas law that requires a referendum"
That democracy thingy again!
"This Stupid Country," Mayor Quimby,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOwRbOK93ag
I guess soliciting donations is out of the question, then?
"Ouroboros phenomenon"
Oh! I've been watching "Loki" (which is really good, BTW). It's a time-travel themed story and there's a main character, Ouroboros. I wondered at the name, but had no idea.
Maybe if they stopped giving free stuff to the 'homeless' and bums, they would less of them and then they could use vagrancy laws to manage the few that would exist then? I suppose holding the individual responsible for their own actions is just too white and racist, so of course cannot be done.
Excuse me for interrupting. Scott Adams is asking for President Trump’s help with Kaiser to begin the experimental meds that have a 30% chance in prolonging his life. Red tape seems to be the delay since he has been approved for treatment. This morning no podcast. He’s heading for the ER.
The present City manager of Austin, was formerly the city manager of Dallas. He was chased out of his job. Now Austin, with 300,000 fewer people than dallas, wants a budget 30% higher than Dallas. That's why the city manager was sent packing. BTW in Texas City Manager is more powerful than a mayor.
This is one of the items the tax increase would fund:
‘$229,000 for two positions to support the implementation of the Austin Climate Equity Plan.’
We wouldn’t want an inequitable climate, would we, comrades! Forward!!
"Quoted in "Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless."
As I've heard/read many times : the more you subsidize something, the more something you get.
The tired, the weary, the huddled masses of California responsible for the growth and demand for housing in Austin are a bit too weary to kowtow to the reflexive demand of tax increase equals compassion. Good for them...and for the Texas referendum that keeps an insatiable government at bay...
...it could also have something do with wasting all that tax money on the new Austin logo and website. All the charm and convenience of those dead website pages that pop up from broken URLs...
I live in Austin and oppose prop Q. One thing I’ve noticed is the city is removing a lot of the very visible homeless camps, particularly under highway overpasses where they are very visible. Kinda like I understand California did when the president of China visited their state. And of course, nobody even the proponent reallythink that higher taxes are the way to solve the homeless problem. The problem that it does solve is allowing the far left government of Austin to hire more like-minded cronies to sit in swivel chairs behind the solid pecan doors in the City Hall and think of ways to screw with the honest citizens.
More payments to NGO organizations for "homeless outreach" results in more enabling of homelessness and the empowering of antisocial behaviors that lead to homelessness. Drug addicts are primary constituency of "homeless street-people". Most effective treatment for drug addiction is physical removal from addiction-enabling lifestyle, drug-use opportunities, and NGO organizations who enable homeless street people to continue to do drugs. Like free needle exchanges, tent handouts, and loosely-supervised homeless shelters that nonetheless house and passively tolerate drug-dealing, drug-use, and related criminal activity. "Homelessness" is a big business for nonprofit agencies receiving significant federal and state and municipal grants to "manage" homeless population, to no avail, with no meaningful decrease in homeless population. So noted in many municipalities tolerant of homelessness and street drug activity: San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, et al.
Mayor Quimby? Is that Quagmire In My Back Yard?
..."the Austin City Council, which voted 10 to 1 to approve the tax rate increase..>"
Well, there's your problem. Everybody is getting a tax increase this year (in Texas), but for Austin residents, this will more than double the increase. More Homeless for your money !
They should run it like one of those restaurants in the PNW, where you 'pay' what you 'feel like', for your meal. Oh... right. It went out of business last year. Looks like virtue is not seen as something best kept as a private matter.
The more money a city expends on helping the homeless always, just only always, increases the number of homeless you have to help.
@Jim Howard: "One thing I’ve noticed is the city is removing a lot of the very visible homeless camps, particularly under highway overpasses where they are very visible...."
Wasn't that a result of Governor Abbot's declaration that camping on public property is illegal and will be enforced ? I seem to remember Big Noise protestations from Austin when he put this in place.....
Elon Musk and Joe Rogan were talking about the homeless problem on their recent JRE podcast. Musk, using his first principles method of analysis, says it's a mistake to call the people causing all of these problems in our downtowns homeless. Instead they should be called Drug Zombies. He went on to claim NGO's were getting paid close to $1Million per Drug Zombie. To keep the self licking ice cream cone scam alive, the drug dealers are allowed to stay, otherwise the Zombies and their revenue potential would leave. So the NGO's need to keep the Drug Zombies in the area and barely alive. They claim that progressive DA's who won't go after the drug dealers are heavily funded by the NGO's to perpetuate the money train.
where high-rise buildings now dominate the skyline of what was once a quirky college town....
A "quirky college town" that, if memory serves, that is also the state capitol of Texas. And from what I've heard also a big tech town.
Wow! The NYT really has its head firmly stuck deep in its own ass!
Asa for John Cornyn, that back-stabbing, gun-grabbing RINO P.O.S., I've been getting almost daily mailers from that prick since early July, for his re-election campaign. According to them, why, you've never seen a Senator more closely aligned with the Great President Donald Trump, why they're practically brothers ! MAGA MAGA MAGA ! Guy is the epitome of this caricature, without the redeeming humor.
"Wow! The NYT really has its head firmly stuck deep in its own ass!"
Oh, it is even worse than that- its head is stuck so far up its ass it comes out the other end and is lodged in the ass a second time.
Well, if the voters of Austin vote the tax increase down, the city council can always sue in federal court and get a district judge to order the tax increase anyway.
Our health care system is a hot mess because of Democrats and their fascist controls.
I've been calling the homeless "Drug Transients" for years.
Most of them are!
The tone of the article is hilarious, though- how frustrating it is to let voters make decisions about how democracy is implemented.
Yancey Ward said...
Oh, it is even worse than that- its head is stuck so far up its ass it comes out the other end and is lodged in the ass a second time.
I disagree. think the head then goes up someone else's ass (probably Hillary or Obama) to get some Democrat Human Centipede action going.
Eva - I hope Trump is listening.
“Everybody loves Austin, but only some people can afford to stay here,” said Ms. Rather, a lifelong Democrat, environmentalist and the daughter of the former CBS News anchor Dan Rather.
Vital correction: ...said Ms. Rather, a lifelong Democrat, environmentalist and the daughter of the fired and disgraced CBS propagandist Dan Rather.
"Colorado’s prison population dropped 20% during the pandemic while violent crime rose nearly 25%. Numbers still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels."
Let all the criminals roam free..
Austin wants to create some sort of slush fund that Democrats can use to advance their destructive policies (none of which will alleviate homelessness or create more affordable housing).
I’ve lived in Texas since 2013. Since then Austin has transitioned from “weird but fun” to “just stay away”,
Peachy said...
"Colorado’s prison population dropped 20% during the pandemic while violent crime rose nearly 25%. Numbers still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels."
Fox Butterfield most highly affected.
“If anything takes us down” it will be because elected officials spout loaded rethoric (like the one I just quoted) at voters expressing their opinions.
And raising taxes will make that even less likely
If you want more of something, throw money at it.
In whose backyard do you want it Robin?
I remember the women with a home in Austin who complained the she could no longer afford the taxes, which kept going up even though she "always voted for Democrats."
Robin Rather: professional Karen.
Its voting for the face eating party then being surprised
Not only professional but literally born and raised to be a Karen.
Grown in a pod like replicants
"Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless. It’s Not Going Well.."
oh COME ON!
you Can't Seriously tell me, that there is a person on this earth, that wouldn't Gladly have their hard earned money taken from them, and given to drug addicted mental cases, roaming the streets raping and murdering!
Get Real!
THAT is WHY we are working and saving..
So that mentally ill drug addicts can rape and murder!
"Wow! The NYT really has its head firmly stuck deep in its own ass!"
Oh, it is even worse than that- its head is stuck so far up its ass it comes out the other end and is lodged in the ass a second time.
...in a fun new take on the Ouroboros symbol.
The Texas law creates a situation where if a taxing authority increases property taxes above a certain percentage in a year through the combination of appraisal increases and rate change, then the rate must be approved by voters in an election rather than just approved by the representative board.
This isn’t a surprise. October is when rates are set for the tax year. Taxing entity knows the property appraisal increases from their appraisal district and they can then set their rate. A well functioning taxing district should be able to maintain services by just building the value of their property. And if they can’t increase value, well then they have room to raise taxes to improve district services to increase value in the future.
Austin is poorly run. What was the fastest growing city in the US is now shrinking.
Joe Bar: I deeply revile Fox Butterfield and Abe Rosenthal. But there is at least one funny story Butterfield tells about his time as a correspondent in China. He rooms with John McCain, whom he'd actually interviewed in Vietnam, and Joe Biden is there too. Butterfield says that Joe Biden was an exceptionally stupid person. Nothing to do with his presidency senility; this is many decades ago. McCain isn't even in Congress yet. Butterfield decides that Biden manages to stay in Congress only because Delaware is such a small state that he has a very skilled staff willing to run cover for him around him. One can imagine how such a situation would grow the roots of a lifetime of deep corruption.
Shared responsibility is one thing. Liberal profligacy is another. A Choice... uh, choice, becomes a burden with progressive casualties.
"Proposition Q"? Wasn't that a musical?
https://www.racket.news/p/listen-to-this-article-the-great-078
12:00 - Tina
the left are so easily fooled. And they still support that grifting corrupt idiot, Burisma Joe.
If I were a voter in Austin, I'd want to see a detailed accounting of the money they currently spend on their homeless programs before I would approve giving them any more money. In many Leftist-controlled cities, there's a Homeless Industrial Complex of politically connected people who provide services at greatly inflated prices. These people in turn make big campaign contributions to Democrats and provide lucrative jobs to the family members and cronies of politicians.
The Homeless Industrial Complex is a jobs program, just not for the homeless.
People did predict that when Californians move in, they bring their way of thinking and voting with them.
Proposition Q[ueer] sounds like a sordid affair of pimps and prostitutes with collateral damage.
The worst Drug Zombies I've ever seen were in Minneapolis, summer before last. They made the Santa Cruz ones look sober by comparison. Was in Austin Fall of '19 for the F1 race. It was worse than Santa Cruz and better than Minneapolis.
"Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless."
I don't see how taxing homeless people is going work.
Not Illinois Resident said...
More payments to NGO organizations for "homeless outreach" results in more enabling of homelessness and the empowering of antisocial behaviors that lead to homelessness. Drug addicts are primary constituency of "homeless street-people". Most effective treatment for drug addiction is physical removal from addiction-enabling lifestyle, drug-use opportunities, and NGO organizations who enable homeless street people to continue to do drugs. Like free needle exchanges, tent handouts, and loosely-supervised homeless shelters that nonetheless house and passively tolerate drug-dealing, drug-use, and related criminal activity."
Yep. A week in jail and physical addiction is over.
Pick 'em up every time they are drugged in public. Lock 'em up two weeks each time. They will be clean. Some will stay that way. Would make a big difference if the clean ones had some sort of job upon release. Hard to get off the streets if you don't have an income.
Maybe bus the clean and sober ones to one of the towns needing replacement workers for illegals?
Sadly, many of them have permanent brain damage from the drugs, the neurological wiring mangled beyond repair.
In every case lime this, that I have seen, the people will vote against it, once, twice, maybe even three times. The council will still find a way to get it enacted. The graft must continue!
"Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless."
More money = more homeless. Austin wants more homeless people? I'd think sane people would want fewer.
Trump is doing what he can on a national level. Restricting drug imports from China, Venezuela, cartels, etc. Creating jobs by removing illegals, and at one time before his present term floating the idea of mental asylums, but homelessness needs to be sorted out at the local level. Restricting where they can set up shelter may make areas look better, but it is just rearranging deck chairs.
How much EBT money is exchanged for drugs?
Also personal responsibility of both the addict as well as their family and community is required. One son is now ten years sober of a meth addiction. It took a lot of work and tough love on our part.
It's heartbreaking Hunter's family wasn't willing to put in the effort.
Any homeless driven from Austin can head to Los Angeles, a one party Dem city with monovocal Dem media and zero financial accountability for homeless and related programs, with a bottomless appetite for illegal immigration and homelessness. And the government still can't figure out how it can ruin the incredibly good weather, perfect for campouts.
LA can't afford to maintain its fire fighting systems, let alone to displace illegal aliens with unaffiliated homeless and a migrating orientation. Newsom fiddles while Bass strums a DEIst cacophony.
Send them to Martha's Vineyard where they are purported to share responsibility.
This is such blatant theft that every tax payer should count as a robbery in the crime statistics.
pacwest, congratulations to your son and to you for ten years sober, and (if you'll accept them) my fervent prayers for his continuing sobriety! That is a long, winding, and rough road, and one most worthy of celebration!
And it immunitizes one against facilie dismissiveness: every one of those people on the street who struggles with addiction, even if at any given moment the "struggle" is just resignation or defiance of anyone else's efforts to help him or her overcome it, is someone's son or daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife, father, mother. Many will never be in recovery. Some will be in recovery many times. A kind society (ISTM) doesn't worry about their "dignity" in the throes of their addiction, as "housing first" programs purport to do, but instead recognizes that their version of the hierarchy of needs doesn't including "dignity" yet. Recovery, especially in its earliest stages, isn't dignified. But it can be life-saving.
I haven't been through a loved one's withdrawal and recovery from meth. But I have been through it with other substances.Godspeed to all making the attempt, and all who support them through its terrible travails.
"Mason G said...
I guess soliciting donations is out of the question, then?"
But how can the Austin Government feel righteous if you volunteer to help. They want to force you to help so that it is really them help even with other people's money.
"They want to force you to help..."
That's how the left rolls. I asked a leftist once, on another message board, why he didn't donate money to the cause he wanted the government to force everybody to fund. He said because everybody should pay regardless of whether or not they personally supported the cause.
Memo to Austin's homeless... GET A JOB.
.."I asked a leftist once, on another message board, why he didn't donate money to the cause he wanted the government to force everybody to fund. He said because everybody should pay ...."
What's the old saying? If you're seated at a poker game, and you look around the table at the other players and can't tell who the chump is, you're the chump. This applies to other games of chance too, like City Government for example.
One of the many nefarious reasons the border was opened by the Biden administration was to facilitate the inflow of drugs. The wreckage of illicit drugs is what keeps the NGO-industrial complex going. Austin is the perfect example, where the drugged zombies are used as the ‘reason’ why we have to increase the money flow. As others have noted, the goal of those who receive the $dough is not to reduce homelessness but to increase it. And it works.
An notion that's been bubbling on the back burner of Republican(tm), libertarian, and "conservative" discourse. has been the idea of eliminating the local property tax on owner occupied residential homes. It sounds good in theory but just imagine how that would enable these Leftist crazies in places like Austin if they didn't have any push back from homeowning taxpayers to keep them somewhat tethered to reality? Because reality bites, even in Austin. This whole "democracy" thing is just kinda unraveling nowadays largely because there's now more tax eaters than there are taxpayers and once that threshold gets crossed, look out.
Los Angeles has spent *billions* on the homeless via prop H, and look hire much homelessness they bought with that!
"Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the homeless". And like Newsom's $24 billion to solve the homeless problem we'll buy a lot more of it. But the right people will skim plenty from the top.
We are facing an election to raise revenue in my county tomorrow. For "infrastructure" (some specifics noted, but by no means all) and "other" needs. Plus hidden clauses that let this one time only action to be repeated endlessly and raised without further votes needed.
I'm a "no".
Austin is a "Company Town". The company is government. E.g. a couple years ago they enacted an ordinance banning local businesses from clearing homeless and squatters from the sidewalks in front of their doors. EXCEPT if the "local business" happened to be a government office, court, etc. Those businesses were explicitly allowed to maintain large clear areas around their doors.
That's who MATTERS in Austin.
Jamie: VERY TRUE, as I also know from experience.
California has spent $27 billion on homelessness with no clear improvement. It's just a HUGE slush fund that nepo babies and insiders are getting rich on. Housing first initiatives. $800K housing units without any conditions on rehab or drug abstinence. Free drugs and paraphernalia. It's just happy talk and corruption.
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