$113 MILLION IN SALES TAXES SLAM COUNTY TAXPAYERS

We don’t have a medical mart or a new convention center but we’re paying top dollar for it anyway.

The quarter-percent sales tax passed by Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora without a public vote now totals $35,233,319.51 as of the end of October, according to County Auditor’s records.

So that’s just $35 million hanging around in the Hagan-Dimora kitty fund. No wonder the boys could pass up on the $500,000 check from K & D developers on the E. 9th building that continues to sit unoccupied and corroding.

Public and civic leaders talk a lot about Regionalization but the public institutions that provide venues for people in the Northeast Ohio area are all paid for by Cleveland and Cuyahoga County taxpayers.

The Region is absent when it comes to paying for its luxuries.

Those outside the city and county boundaries can enjoy sports, art and cultural events in the city but they don’t have to pay the taxes that support these activities.

This is about as unfair as the tea tax that helped start the American Revolution.

City and/or county residents are paying for an absent medical mart and convention center, a pro football stadium and a host of arts and cultural events enjoyed by everyone to say nothing of Gateway.

In addition to the $35.2 million for the medical mart, Cleveland taxpayers have shelled out another $45.2 million for the Browns stadium as of October 31 and for an additional $33.4 million for Arts & Culture issues as of the same date.

All the taxes are from regressive sales taxes, hitting the non-rich much harder than the wealthy. But you see from the Plain Dealer that the problem with taxes these days is that corporate rich guys have to pay on their stock option income.

Oh, what a shame!

In total for the above mentioned issues, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have paid the handsome sum of $113.8 million in these recently enacted sales taxes. (This doesn’t count the millions of dollars for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the recent $1 million gift from Mayor Frank Jackson and Council for the Rock Hall dinner.)

Of course, the taxes continue to be collected as you read this article.

We don’t have a medical mart or a new convention center, however, at about $3.5 million a month, the total for the year 2008 should be some $42 million, more than the $40 million a year County Commissioners Hagan and Dimora said it would bring into the County coffers.

One has to remember that this is $2 million more per year is being collected on sales during a deep recession, so the taxpayers may be giving the County much more than the estimated $800 million over the 25-year once the economy, if it ever does here, recovers.

But then it’s only money paid by ordinary people. It doesn’t hit any business people where it hurts. So I guess that’s okay with the news media and the people that count.