Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne
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Thursday, February 10, 2011
Bethlehem's GO Bond Rating Drops fro A- to BBB
Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan may want to discuss this news during tomorrow's State of the City.
23 comments:
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That is the Bethlehem Authority's bond rating---not the city
ReplyDeleteIf you look below, you'll see t is the City's rating, too.
ReplyDeleteLet me speak for Geeting, this will be fun!
ReplyDeleteNone of this would happen if we just increase taxes. After all, Americans are woefully undertaxed.
Then we need to consolidate towns so all those maroons in the Slate Belt can pay for Bethlehem's largess, without any benefit back. After all, if they're stupid enough to live outside the city, they should be penalized.
Then we need to consolidate municipal services (police, fire, etc.) so that the Slate Belt can pay for Bethlehem again. For the reason, see prior paragraph.
Then we need to eliminate voting - after all, voters are stupid. They should be replaced with a Liberal Politburo.
There you go - Utopia.
"We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements,...our people...must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to government,...and have no time to think, no means to call the mismanagers to account; but to be glad to obtain sustenance by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers...And this is the tendency of all human governments; a departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'till the bulk of society has been reduced to be mere automations of misery...And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt; Taxation follows that and, in its train, wretchedness and oppression."- Thomas Jefferson (1823)
ReplyDeleteFor example. If the system be established on basis of Income, and his just proportion on that scale has been already drawn from every one, to step into the field of Consumption, and tax special articles in that, as broadcloth or homespun, wine or whiskey, a coach or a wagon, is doubly taxing the same article. For that portion of Income with which these articles are purchased, having already paid its tax as Income, to pay another tax on the thing it purchased, is paying twice for the same thing; it is an aggrievance on the citizens who use these articles in exoneration of those who do not, contrary to the most sacred of the duties of a government, to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.
ReplyDeleteThomas Jefferson, April 6, 1816
"The question was never the immediate amount of taxation that the British were asking of the colonists. The question was whether the British had the right to do it at all. We're talking about people [the American colonists] with enormous sensitivity to the dangers of power. If you conceded the right to Parliament to tax and if there was no check on it, no limit, it could go on indefinitely. You could be bled white. The power to tax was the power to destroy." Sam Adams
"The sacred rights of property are to be guarded at every point. I call them sacred, because, if they are unprotected, all other rights become worthless or visionary. What is personal liberty, if it does not draw after it the right to enjoy the fruits of our own industry? What is political liberty, if it imparts only perpetual poverty to us and all our posterity? What is the privilege of a vote, if the majority of the hour may sweep away the earnings of our whole lives, to gratify the rapacity of the indolent, the cunning, or the profligate, who are borne into power upon the tide of a temporary popularity?" -Judge Joseph Story, 1852
I think the City of Bethlehem should just sit back and the Great Mayor Callahan run the rest of the city under, pretty soon Freemansburg will be wealthier and a better place to live OH WAIT!!! this has already happen. Callahan and all his rich cronies are living large off the City while the hard working honest residents are suffering! OUST CALLAHAN or isn't there anyone left with real old fashioned BALLS!!
ReplyDeleteMorning Call, The (Allentown, PA)--February 27, 2008
ReplyDeleteBethlehem hedges bets on on-time casino**Officials try to plan for risk of Sands opening later than June 2009 It may take awhile before Bethlehem taxpayers see any relief in their city tax bill as a result of getting host fees from the Sands BethWorks casino, the city's business administrator acknowledged during a City Council Finance Committee meeting Tuesday. The Callahan administration is currently working on a five-year financial model that details how the city plans to budget the estimated $8.7million in annual host fees, said Dennis Reichard, the city's chief financial officer. Reichard declined to provide further details until "very soon," when Mayor John Callahan is ready to unveil them. He and Callahan also are working on a plan to fill in 2009 budget holes in case the casino doesn't open by its target date in 16 months. Las Vegas Sands master builder Bradley Stone was in Bethlehem Friday and gave no indication that the casino, being built on former Bethlehem Steel land, would not open by June 2009.
Wait they have a plan, really they do they said so!!!
Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA) - April 21, 2005
ReplyDeleteCallahan says $10 million slots levy will allow him to lower taxes ** Rybak says mayor too worried about campaign contributors.
Bethlehem's $10 million annual levy for hosting a slots parlor would allow the city to immediately lower taxes, Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan pledged during a mayoral debate on Wednesday. Standing before a room of senior citizens and his Democratic challenger, Anthony Rybak, Callahan said the $10 million fee would represent nearly one-fifth of Bethlehem's current $52 million budget. "This would be an enormous economic boost to the city,"...
We get a tax brake John, said so!!!
Bernie,
ReplyDeleteThe State of the City is next Thursday - the 17th.
Wow. He loused up a really nice town. It's like Back To The Future II when Biff runs a dark and dangerous Hill Valley. Bethlehem elected Biff!
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget a man called Cunningham, former mayor of Bethlehem and now the tyrant of Lshigh County.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Lee for the quotes of the Founders on this matter and particularly Jefferson who due to his station as a Virginia Planter struggled under enormous debt and still had the courage to tell us not to do same. He noted that the the government should also be frugal
There are many Americans who live under great debt despite what Jefferson said and that is because they were never taught those qoutes while in school or college. Shame on us.
Standard&Poor's Ratings Services lowered to 'BBB' from 'A-' its rating on Bethlehem Authority, Pa.'s general obligation (GO) debt. The outlook is stable. At the same time, we assigned a 'BBB' rating and stable outlook to the authority's 2011A guaranteed lease revenue bonds. The downgrade is based on a deterioration of the city of Bethlehem's financial position and the need to issue deficit financing to fund operating expenses. The rating reflects the following factors: High level of interfund borrowing to finance operating expenditures over the last several years, necessitating issuance of deficit financing; Ongoing structural budgetary imbalance in the general fund operations, resulting in negative fund balances in fiscal 2008 and 2009; and A lack of financial management monitoring.
ReplyDeleteAnd some of these people think they should be re-elected.
Every borrowed dollar, every mis-spent dime, every penny which was illegal shifted has been authorized or turned a blind eye to by City Council.
ReplyDeleteThe President of Council Bob "can't we just sweep this under the rug because I want to be Mayor next" Donchez and Chair of the Finance Committee Rubberstamp "I'm too busy with my hot girlfriend" Reynolds are up for re-election this year.
I now see that they were not sleeping at the switch; they were drooling on it!
The Battle Cry of Freedom like:
ReplyDelete“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt…If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.” Thomas Jefferson
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." - Thomas Jefferson
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…” Thomas Jefferson
The Battle Cry of Freedom
ReplyDelete"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor – He speaks in accents familiar to his victims, He wears their face and their garments, He appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men, He rots the soul of a nation, He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, He infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to fear"
Marcus Tullius Cicero 42BC
"Individualism is a concept which the advocates of most political systems try desperately to avoid. They'd prefer that political contests, debates and symposia were limited to answering loaded questions such as, 'WHICH type of powerful government should we have?', 'WHICH type of dictatorship do you tend to prefer?", 'WHAT KINDS of intrusiveness should government engage in?' and, 'WHICH type of control freaks are best suited to run your life for you?' ... They often get upset, even hysterical, if you point out that socialism, fascism, communism and mixed-economy welfare-states have a lot in common. They carry on and on as if non-essentials such as style(!) or WHAT anybody sacrifices individual rights in the name of (the master race, the proletariat, the society, the common good, the majority, the country, the fatherland, the motherland the brother-in-law-land, the revered leader or savior or god or whatever) is a big freakin' deal, especially as only in their particular fantasies do they imagine everyone, the enforcers and even their victims, acting forever polite and cooperative in the sacrifice-extracting rituals (as have many fledgling and would-be dictators, including the incredibly bloody Pol Pot at first)." -- Rick Gaber
donchez has been on council for 15 years. HE IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. Only weak kneed lip service. Time for new blood. BUSINESS LEADERS not union school teachers. Vote donchez and wee willy the callahan clone out. return our city back to the citizens
ReplyDeleteThe Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson
ReplyDeleteCuckoo, The Clock Builder
ReplyDeleteWha Hoppen?
ReplyDeleteHey, I still have a hot girlfriend!
ReplyDeleteLee
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing how smart those old guys were. One of their favorites was, of course, Cicero. Grear job.
I'm moving to Easton!
ReplyDeleteCity Council and the Mayor guilty of TREASON. 1: the betrayal of a trust : treachery. This has been going on since 2006. The only Councilman worth anything is "Councilman David DiGiacinto, who last year described the budget as "fiscally mismanaged," said the rating reflects years of spending not keeping up with expenses, and of plugging holes with one-time revenues and tapping funds such as the treasurer's escrow and water fund for operating expenses."
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.mcall.com/2007-10-11/news/3786470_1_escrow-account-tax-increase-budget-deficit
Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA-- October 11, 2007 :Audit finds Bethlehem outspent income ** City borrowed escrow funds to make ends meet. Councilman thinks that's illegal.
A draft of Bethlehem's 2006 audit shows that the city spent $1.6 million more than it brought in last year, reigniting a debate over how the city pays its bills and setting the stage for the budget talks -- and possible tax hikes -- next month. Councilman Joseph Leeson Jr. said the audit shows a budget deficit, which he believes violates state and city law.
check out this to.
http://articles.mcall.com/2007-02-14/news/3715826_1_escrow-account-tax-hike-tax-increase
This just didn't pop up out of the blue they knew and did nothing to stop it!!!
Do you really think these people would still have a job in the private sector??? Get real!