Reply to Montgomery County, please give Elrich a chance. Don't let Floreen fool you.

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Montgomery County, please give Elrich a chance. Don't let Floreen fool you."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Op here and asking in earnest.

What *actually* would you like to see, here, in local government? I'm assuming your're Republican/right-leaning unaffiliated or fiscally conservative Democrat of some kind. What kind of council/executive would you want?
[/quote]

I'm not PP, but I'll bite.

Reasons I don't like Elrich:
- $15/hour minimum wage. This was done for the union vote. I get the idea -- ensure a living wage. But this just passes the costs to employers, and it's not a great way to handle it. It doesn't consider family situation (# of people in household) nor other income coming in. Instead, the best way to deal with this problem is to just raise the Earned Income Tax Credit. That look at total household income as well as household size, and is already issued by MD anyway. It would be easy to up it for people in MoCo. But, that doesn't make the unions happy.

Why I don't like the minimum wage at $15 is that some people at entry-level, like a 20-year old starting their first job, aren't really worth $15/hour. Now they're shut out of the labor market, even if they provide value at $10/hour instead. What we're going to see is companies that move any jobs they can do Frederick County or Howard County since they have lower minimum wages.

- Tax increases. Marc voted to raise property taxes. The overall county budget has increased much faster than the county population. They're spending disproportionately more compared to population growth or inflation.

- A perfect example of overspending is the $400k to a non-profit to fund legal defense for illegal immigrants. The organization decided it didn't want it due to the strings attached (can't fund the defense of violent criminals). A prudent Council member would have voted against the proposal at that point. Instead, Elrich votes in favor of it, in the hope that some other non-profit will magically appear that wants the money. What a waste -- spending money that no one wants!

- Failure to end the DLC (liquor) monopoly. We're the only county in MD like this, and one of the few in the entire country. Surely our needs aren't so special compared to everywhere else in the US. The reason Elrich won't privatize is there are 300 union members working at DLC. All that has been proposed is to open this to competition. Why are the union members so afraid of this? If they provide great service and selection, then people won't go to the private stores anyway, will they?

Now the claim is that DLC brings $30mln into the county coffers, and where will we find the money to make up from it..? Guess what -- the minimum wage increase will cost the County about that much per year, as they'll now need to raise wages of county workers like lifeguards and snack bar attendants at the county parks.

Elrich is not what this county needs. He's had 12 years on the Council to show it.[/quote]

+1.  Couldn’t agree more. Believe Elrich will raise taxes and spend money on a lot of unnecessary things. Also believe he will only represent and cater to people of Takoma Park and liberals for which I do not identify as a moderate Democrat who lives in Gaithersburg/Tockville.  I believe he is out of touch with needs of people in north and west part of county.[/quote]

The entire county has become about supporting Silver Spring, Wheaton and especially Takoma Park. SS and Takoma makes up most of the Council because of the at large reps. They get elected by the SS, Takoma, Wheaton people and also the elite in Potomac who want certain NIMBY demands met (no school on their school property - the horrors!). 
Then they have the middle class from Bethesda, Gaithersburg, and Rockville fund everything while receiving endless building projects , traffic nightmares and school problems. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics