Texas/Dallas DUers - Question: So, if Texas is sooooo anti-tax

[zbdent]

and, apparenlty struggling with a weak economy, like most other states,

how come the public housing issue, a.k.a. the new stadium tax for the Dallas Cowboys, passed with flying colors?

[Fenris]

1. You answered your own question

how come the public housing issue, a.k.a. the new stadium tax for the Dallas Cowboys, passed with flying colors?

[sui generis]

2. those pass on ballot initiative

so our property taxes just keep going up and up. But on the bright side our property taxes are cheaper than income taxes. On the not so bright side, our schools apparently left most of the children behind and our legislature only meets once every two years for a few weeks to blow each other and go home.

[rainbow4321]

16. Better that they only meet every other year...

Cuz they are such an embarrassment to Texas. I keep hearing bits and pieces of what our wonderful <cough, cough, gasp, choke> lawmakers are doing over the past few weeks...Forget that CPS is failing the abused kids, that the school funding is in shambles and was deemed unconstitutional, that we have no money in the coffers to fix anything...what do they focus on?? Putting kids' body fat on their report cards (hey, dumbasses, maybe if the schools didn't allow soda and ice cream machines in the schools just to get the company contract$ it might help matters), asking that beer kegs be registered, that kids be kept in car seats til they are 8 yrs old....

All I can guess is that they are dealing with these wimpy things so as not to piss off their lobbyist$. When are the people down here going to catch on that NOTHING is getting fixed under this repuke regime??

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. Scary isn't it?

Football is a freaking religion here. These people bitch about not wanting to pay taxes to support welfare moms etc. And God forbid they pay a little extra so everyone could have universal helthcare.

but offer em a new football stadium, and the morons come out of the woodwork to vote yes.

Have I mentioned lately how much I fucking hate this state?
FSC

[jackster]

4. why? because Texas unfortunately is full of Texans

(again sorry blue Texans, but you do seem to have more than your share of the most idiotic people ever put on this planet!)

[tx_dem41]

6. That's just because everything's big in Texas.

;-)

[jackster]

8. Tx_Dem41

RIGHT ON! You Texan Dems are brave!

[crispini]

5. Just for the record, ARLINGTON passed the new stadium tax,

not Dallas. There are many people in the city proper that realize that those stupid stadia don't really do all that much for the local economy, and that Mr. Jones could well afford to pay for the damn thing HIMSELF without sucking off the taxpayer's tit.

The 'burbs, on the other hand, are a little more gullible. And, usually red, as opposed to Dallas itself, which is blue.

[tx_dem41]

7. Just to give some perspective, Arlington is the largest city in the U.S. .

...that doesn't have any public transportation. Well, they do have their priorities..errr...wrong.

[madamheidi84]

9. As an Arlington resident allow me to say...

that 45% of us who voted on this issue in Nov., voted against it. There was a very large "No Jones Tax" movement in Arlington, but unfortunately the allure of the Cowboys was too much to overcome. The Cowboys were even successful in infiltrating my campus. I go to UTA, and the pro-Cowboys people paid off the College Republicans to get access to our campus when Rock the Vote came. We (University Dems) invited the "No Jones Tax" people to join us that day for free.

I was totally against bankrolling Jerry Jones new stadium, and I was very much against kicking out all those (lower-low middle class) people who currently live where the stadium will go. Seeing how little the Ball Park did for our local economy should have been proof positive for most people that the argument that stadiums always bring in boat loads of money isn't true, but apparently it was not.

Arlington is most definitely not a suburb of anything, most Arlingtonites take offense to being called a suburb of Dallas, because we really aren't. We are as self-sufficient as Ft. Worth or anywhere else, but the argument that it is more conservative is probably true. This is the city that passed an ordinance limiting how small houses could be built in order to keep out Habitat for Humanity houses. Arlington has a very strong anti-poor people policy. It's also why we don't have mass transit. We wouldn't want the poor people getting around town and traveling out of the part of town that's designated for them. Pretty soon even that part of town will be bulldozed and replaced with a stadium, so we'll really be free of them.

The mentality of my city sickens me, but when I graduate I will be free of it (and the new taxes), so I'm just counting the months down till graduation. 11 and counting.

[crispini]

10. Welcome to DU!

:hi: And there are sensible people everywhere, I know. :) Just wish there were more of 'em in general. :D

[zbdent]

11. So, where were they threatening to move the Cowboys to?

That is, if they didn't get a brand-spankin, shiny, new stadium?

[tx_dem41]

13. Well....they weren't in Arlington to begin with...

They were in Irving. They flirted with Dallas, but Dallas (thank goodness) wouldn't play ball with them. So, they went to Arlington (a city midway between Ft. Worth and Dallas). Arlington has Six Flags and the Rangers' baseball stadium already and has a proven record of whoring itself to big money owners in exchange for.....I don't know what.

[Lithos]

12. Welcome to DU!

Good to see another DFW area Democrat on DU!

L-

[tx_dem41]

14. Welcome to DU, Madamheidi!

:toast:

I agree with everything you said about Arlington, especially the anti-poor people movement and how that is reflected through the anti-mass transit movement.

Good to have another true blue-in-a-red-state member on board!

[rainbow4321]

15. The stadium also got the city's Homeland Security funding increased

Guess "only" having Six Flags, the water park, and the Ranger Stadium wasn't worthy of extra funding..but, by gosh, the football stadium is needin' some serious protecting.



http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2005-01-06/news/buzz.html

Here's further proof that having professional sports franchises in your town is worth a hell of a lot of money. In its recently released budget for fiscal year 2005, the Department of Homeland Security decided to award $5 million of the $3.6 billion it set aside for its Urban Area Security Initiative to... Arlington. Seems the DHS has decided that the home of the Texas Rangers (and, in a few years, the Dallas Cowboys) is a "high-threat" urban area.
Previously, Arlington was getting about $400,000 to $500,000 from the feds, but now, instead of funneling most of the security money to "high-risk" cities,the DHS is sending it to the nation's biggest cities. Also, the department now factors in reports of domestic terrorism incidents, "whether actual attacks or just false reports," according to a recent story in The New York Times.

[RB TexLa]

19. DART and the Super Bowl

Arlington will have to join DART because the NFL requires a super bowl site to be accessible by adequate public transportation. For the Dallas area "adequate" would be light rail as defined by the NFL.

[crispini]

20. Hahahahahaha!

that's pretty fecking funny. I wonder if they knew that when they voted on it?

[rainbow4321]

17. (sigh) How can 2 counties right next to each other be so different

I'm in Collin County...wish some of Dallas' blue would seep on over this way!
It is NICE to see people acknowledging that there IS blue in Texas/N Texas. Gettin' kinda frustrated over in GD:Politics when they turn their noses up at the red states and say that there are "not enough of us" in the South for the Dems to work with..look at this thread where I posted an article that has some dude from Arizona saying that he feels the Southern states are no longer a place where nat'l Dems should bother with...that they need to look to the Western states, instead:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1518023

Think I need to spend more time in the TX forum w/ people who KNOW we are not a figment of imagination!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[crispini]

18. Yes, come by more often!

We usually post good stuff and keep each other up on the activist scene!

[madamheidi84]

21. Thanx for the welcome everyone!

Oddly enough...today I just got propositioned to run for city council here in Arlington, and I'm actually considering it. The only thing is my plans to leave in 11 months would have to be put on hold. ha. Oh, well.

The city council has plans for building a light rail system that would extend out to the Dart lines that already exist about 10 minutes away, but it in no way would be the kind of mass transit system that Arlington really needs.