Anonymous wrote:Lots of ideas, opinions, stats and hackneyed cliches being thrown about on this thread.

One thing that I might suggest for all posting on here, how about running for a spot on the county council? There seems to be a lot of people running unopposed. Give these folks some competition by running on a platform of balancing the budget.

https://www.mymcmedia.org/montgomery-county-council-general-election-results/

Were you not here last year? There were 30+ people running for the four at-large seats. All the district Councilmembers had opposition as well.

Elrich won only because there were 5 other democrats in the primary. And then he had to contend with Floreen in the general election.

Lots of ideas, opinions, stats and hackneyed cliches being thrown about on this thread.

One thing that I might suggest for all posting on here, how about running for a spot on the county council? There seems to be a lot of people running unopposed. Give these folks some competition by running on a platform of balancing the budget.

https://www.mymcmedia.org/montgomery-county-council-general-election-results/

Anonymous wrote:

Everything is going wrong right now in MoCo. NIMBYs are to blame.

Maybe the County Exec's idea to limit development doesn't work that well?

Compare Arlington and Alexandria in Va and even DC. All run by Democrats, all with policies on immigrants, etc as left as MoCo, but all much more open to development and less sympathetic to the case for "preserving neighborhood charecter".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Start properly taxing the country clubs! And yes. I belong and think that it is wrong.

Are Country Clubs not taxed?

No. County clubs do NOT PAY TAXES!

I'm assuming thats a trade off for land preservation, and keeping swaths of new homes from being built?

OK with me - would much rather have a park than the country club, but don't think we can afford to buy all the country clubs! And I'm sure a few would consolidate or otherwise fail if their taxes were increased 10-20x. Then we would be left with MORE residential development/traffic/strain on services. No thank you!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Start properly taxing the country clubs! And yes. I belong and think that it is wrong.

Are Country Clubs not taxed?

No. County clubs do NOT PAY TAXES!

I'm assuming thats a trade off for land preservation, and keeping swaths of new homes from being built?

Not to mention the spending at MCPS where 90% of the 2.7 billion goes to salaries, wages and benefits. In other words the adults...no wonder they have to cover up declining quality with 3 card monty (pun intended) with boundaries.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/budget-101/index.html

Finally talk of an Inspector General for the schools. Can you imagine what they are going to find? Peter Bang on steroids!

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/courts/county-lawsuit-proceeds-against-former-official-convicted-of-stealing-7-million/

MoCo is spending what, 7-8% of its budget on debt service alone? By 2025 the county will spend $500 million on debt service which is starting to approach 10%. What happens beyond that? What happens if the credit rating drops and interest for up? The whole system come crashing down. A change in credit rating and how much debt MoCo has is absolutely terrifying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:they need to address compensation and retirement benefits. Including retiree health benefits. That drives over 80% of all costs. If they adult up and do that, everything will be fine.

~county employee.

Its not 80% of the costs and there is huge waste in the county spending.

-former county employee who got tired of the wasteful spending.

Try again:

“Factors within the County’s control include the scope of County services, employee compensation and benefits, and workforce size. Government is a labor-intensive enterprise. Across the four County-funded agencies, employee compensation costs (consisting of salaries and wages as well as benefits) comprise 80% of all agency operating expenditures. As such, the cost of government is driven by both the number of employees and the cost per employee. Since compensation costs are the dominant factor in the cost of providing County services, the long-term sustainability of County agency operating budgets is dependent upon maintaining a balance between compensation cost growth and revenue growth.”

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council/Resources/Files/agenda/col/2019/20191210/20191210_7.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism doesn't work!

News at 5.

The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money.

EXACTLY. MoCo make me sick.

It’s not particularly “socialist” to tax country clubs at a rate far lower than the average homeowner as MoCo does.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:they need to address compensation and retirement benefits. Including retiree health benefits. That drives over 80% of all costs. If they adult up and do that, everything will be fine.

~county employee.

Unions were the biggest contributor to Elrich and his super-PAC. He'll do nothing about it.

I know. they sit in his office slavering over him every day.

But the Council has appropriation authority and they could break the contracts, if they had the guts to do so.