How did the highest paid municipal worker in America get that way? By raising taxes. The Los Angeles Times reports that the city of Bell, Calif. nearly doubled taxes for sewer, trash and other city services and then funneled more than $1 million of the proceeds to then-city administrator Robert Rizzo and others.
That’s why Rizzo and eight other former city officials are now on trial for corruption. As one prosecutor put it, you aren’t allowed to use city funds as your personal “piggy bank.”
At least these guys were in it for the money. They raised taxes to pay themselves more money. It was pure self-interest.
When President Obama talks about raising taxes, it’s supposed to be for our own good. As Amity Shlaes points out, “We’ve all heard President Obama invoking fairness in defense of the 39.6 (tax) rate he seeks.”
Raising taxes would mean the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress had taken money from people who’d earned it fairly, in order to give it to others, who may or may not have done anything to earn it — how much time do you have to spend looking for a job in order to collect unemployment for two years?
Which is the worse corruption, Bell, Calif. or Washington, DC?