"On July 16th, 2013 Shelby County (TN) Commissioner Walter Bailey, asked “What will we say to the Gates Foundation if we don’t pass the property tax increase requested by schools (which ultimately passed 2 weeks later)?” He was referring to the grant of 90 million dollars that the Gates Foundation awarded to Memphis City Schools back in 2009."For more detail, check out the post at RedState.Com
Will the citizens of Shelby County get to have more say in their local government than Bill Gates? Do our elected leaders represent the interests of the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1% because they donate their private dollars? You have heard of pay to play right?
Grants are always spoken of in a positive light but if you attend the local midsouth council and commission meetings, you begin to see a pattern of how pay to play really works and how it eventually leads the city and the county deeper into debt. These grants don't last forever and when their time is up, who do you think foots the bill? If you said the taxpayer, reach a behind your back and slap it, you are smarter than the average taxpayin' bear.
Now, a lot of these grants are created and doled out with the best of intentions but we all know the road to....awww you know the rest of that saying. When the government adds these debts to an already ballooning deficit, it leaves less money to pay for police and fire. What the citizens of the Midsouth need to realize is, some of you show up for the budget meetings to make sure they don't cut your pay or raise your property taxes but it's the spending they do the rest of the year on things the government really shouldn't be spending on that creates the problem.
We here at the Midsouth Sentinel believe voting is the least of our civic duty responsibilities...attending these meetings are of utmost importance. The chambers where they meet are usually empty, that needs to change.....
Stay tuned for the upcoming agendas....