Category: Burlington

Falcon,

I see where Burlington & Des Moines County of people living below the poverty level is hanging around 14% meaning approximately 6000 people around our county are basically wards of the taxpayers, by the way that’s 2% above the state average.

I would assume the largest percentage of them are living in Burlington a city on the verge of bankruptcy if not total economic failure because of a one party political system incapable of making positive decisions.  Our city management tends to think Burlington can earn subsistence through the taxes placed on tourism brought in by the Rec Plex which will never happen no matter how much they spend on that taxpayer owned operation.  I wonder if the Hotel/Motel employees earn what the people at the city run RecPlex earn?

Des Moines County and Burlington need good industrial jobs something the county and city are incapable of producing unless the taxpayers subsidize the hell out of them.  On top of no jobs we have hundreds of entitlement people from out of state moving in to the county as does most of Eastern Iowa with no marketable skills other than living off taxpayers.  Of course the union influence doesn’t help either and more or less hinders getting good jobs into this area of Iowa.  Throw in the left wing Hawk Eye and its left leaning editorial page and we are basically dead in the water at obtaining livable wage jobs.

A city having no jobs with an influx of the entitlement crowd can only mean further failure for a city like Burlington, a city with high crime, high entitlement population, questionable school system, rampart use of drugs, few livable wage jobs, high taxes and fees that go along with high state taxes and fees.  There is nothing but outrageous stealing from the taxpayers to support a top heavy and incapable management of state, city and county governments.  All government employees in Iowa are grossly overpaid and benefitted by the taxpayers while much of the private sector is forced to get entitlements in order to subsist after paying the high taxes and fees to support the government “Privileged Class”.

We have far too much crime in this city and county.  Burlington ranks third highest in the state for crime out of some 900 plus cities and towns in Iowa.  Keokuk ranks first in crime with Davenport second making the eastern part of Iowa the crime capital of Iowa.  Of course Easter Iowa is the democratic stronghold of Iowa which accounts for most of the mess this part of Iowa is saddled with.  Also, with the number of shootings experienced this year in Burlington our city will probably move up in the rankings for crime rather than down.

If it weren’t for Randy Winegard this town would probably eventually dry up and disappear in the hot summer breezes.  I often wonder what Burlington would do if it weren’t for the Winegard Corporation.  Of course there are several other firms supporting Burlington like Case, GE and the IAAP along with several others that pay livable wages over $10.50 per hour but there are far too many Burlington jobs that pay less than a livable wage forcing their employees seek entitlements to make ends meet.

Another extremely bad situation is after the first of the year we’ll be back in another bad recession because of Obamacare and Obama policies all lined up like dominoes to further destroy our industrial base along with the medical system.  We’ll have thousands of new regulations written by the Obama administration that will further saddle small business with regulations costing something like ten to twelve thousand dollars per employee which in turn will increase more job losses.

With this president the future looks dismal at best if one can call it that good.  Then we have a city management and a newspaper that on their own are destroying future growth for livable wage jobs here in Burlington through their editorial page and support for government and even private unions both of which tend to force good wage jobs elsewhere rather than Burlington.

DS