Palm Bay Works 2009 rejected by voters
May 13, 2009 by Matthew Nye · 1 Comment
The $75.2 million Palm Bay Works 2009 bond referendum failed yesterday with 56.5 percent of voters voting against the project. Less than 13 percent of the city’s 60,617 registered voters turned out to cast their ballots.
Some advocates of the referendum, like Palm Bay City Manager Lee Feldman, explained that the program was based on the (Keynesian) premise that government spending on public works projects spurs economic activity, and believe that FDR and the New Deal are what got us out of the Great Depression.
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So Many Errors, So Little Time
February 10, 2009 by Scott Ellis · Leave a Comment
The following missive was sent to the brevardpoliticaljournal.com in response to an article I had written identifying the latest Palm Bay tax-borrow-and-spend ‘job creation’ program to the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt and his Brain Trusters. I have always said once an individual moves off the track of facts and moves onto the tracks of personalities, it is a sure fire way of knowing they realize they have lost their argument on its merits. The author below clearly recognizes his cause is lost on the factual debate. So, let me respond to as many comments below as I can in one night.
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What is Seen, and What is Not Seen in Palm Bay
February 9, 2009 by Scott Ellis · Leave a Comment
More than 150 years ago Frederic Bastiat wrote his famous essay, “What is seen, and what is not seen”. As the City of Palm Bay moves to put their Mini-Me New Deal to the ballot, what is seen is money will be spent by the city ($13 million) to allegedly create jobs.
What is not seen is how many jobs may have been created had the citizens been permitted to spend their own money as they saw fit. The entire thought of of a city taxing people (a job destroying mechanism) to create other jobs is a scene straight from the Michael Moore film of years ago, Roger and Me, where the city of Flint, Michigan, bedeviled by thousands of laid off autoworkers, builds a tourist attraction called Auto World to ‘stimulate’ tourism and ‘create’ jobs. I expect Palm Bay will be as successful as Flint.
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