The Los Angeles Times is guilty of using bogus assertions about the city’s spending to bolster cravings of the “philosopher kings” in City Hall for more and more taxes. That’s according to former Republican mayoral candidate Walter Moore.
It’s undeniable that LA has a severe homeless problem. With nearly 26,000 homeless people, only 30 percent are provided with shelter. The rest live on the sidewalks, under freeway overpasses, in parks and in vacant lots.
Mayor Eric Garcetti’s administration has released its plan to spend $1.85 billion dollars over ten years to move every homeless person into some sort of decent housing. He’s told the City Administrative Officer and Chief Legislative Analyst to find $100 million a year to make it happen.
On KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning, Moore took the Los Angeles Times to task for publishing an article containing three “whoppers” – that seemed too well suited to the city’s claim that new taxes or a bond is the only way to pay for the plan.
Whopper #1
LA Times reporter Peter Jamison in a February 24th story, wrote, “With city services already pared to a minimum during the recession — roughly 7 in 10 tax dollars currently pay for firefighters or police officers — budget officials expect to tap reserve funds to balance their books in 2016.”
Wrong! says Moore. The percentages in the Times article are exactly inverted! He says 24 percent of the city’s budget goes to police and firefighters. That’s more like 1 in 4 tax dollars.
Whopper #2
The article also claims that city property tax revenues have been “decimated” since the 2008 housing bubble burst. Moore says, in fact the city’s tax revenue from property taxes has gone up significantly and the city’s budget is at least 10 percent larger now than it was in 2007-2008, thanks to $792 million additional dollars is pouring into city coffers. With all that extra cash coming in, Moore asks why does the city need a bond or additional taxes to end homelessness?
Whopper #3
The Times article quotes Councilman Paul Krekorian as saying “There isn’t a penny of money that isn’t allocated to an important priority — and, in fact, the city faces structural deficits for years to come.”
More balderdash! says Moore. There’s tons of waste in the city budget and city’s stated need to find “new revenues” to cure homelessness is just another crisis du jour concocted by city leaders to fleece the tax payers. And the LA Times, he says, is far too willing to provide the necessary “whoppers” to soften up the tax payers in advance of the big ask.
By Sandy Wells