Wednesday, April 8, 2015

WITH CASCOS GONE, ITS' SPEND-AND-TAX PETE SEPULVEDA

By Juan Montoya
No sooner was former county judge Carlos Cascos clearing the northern end of Cameron County than his appointed successor move to show the road where he wants to take us.
He started by moving up David Garcia, his assistant at the county administrator, as interim department head, and restoring the $70,000 he had lost when he was taken off the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority teat.
Now he wants to include the county in a tax-in-case-we-need-it-down-the-road health-care district that would tack on an additional 25 cents to property taxpayers concocted by tax-and-spend specialists Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., his son St. Rep. Lucio III, and their fellow legislator Rene Oliveira.
According to their scheme, the new property tax revenues would help reimburse hospitals for providing health care for people who can't afford it. It, however, would also help fund the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley medical school going up in Harlingen.
A similar proposition was shot down by the voters in Hidalgo County who were asked to approve a 75 cent tax to help fund the new university medical school there.
 This is  a new twist to the old tax-and-spend scheme. Now it appears to be a spend-then-tax approach.
It's also called a bait-and-switch because after all the fanfare and public announcements about the University of Texas System bringing a  stand-alone university and medical school, we now have our legislators saying that the local taxpayers will foot the bill.
This is a far cry from the UT System meeting its responsibilities to educate and provide medical instruction to all Texans. But this is also about par with the performance of these so-called public servants. Instead of holding the UT System's feet to the fire to meet its legislatively-mandated responsibilities, these two (Lucio Jr. and Olivieira) went along with the "partnership" scheme between the Texas Southmost College and UTB that saw more than $1 BILLION in "transfers" from the local college to the mega rich UT System over its 21-year abusive relationship. In fact, TSC district taxpayers will be paying for the construction bonds issued on UT's behalf for decades to come.
Cameron County has forged private-public partnerships with local hospitals under Cascos that made it unnecessary for the county to unload further tax burdens (as in a taxing district) and at the same time provide care to the indigent of the county.
We are doing fine, thank you.
It was intriguing that during Sepulveda's appointment as county judge, some of the head honchos on the sham shadow government organization called United Brownsville were prominently seated among the audience. They do have a nose for easy money, don't they? Can they smell a soft touch in Sepulveda?
It is witless and disingenuous for Sepulveda (and the Lucios and Oliveira) to advocate a tax on county taxpayers, not because the wolf is at the door, mind you, but because maybe tomorrow or the net year or decade from now, it may be.
Our county commissioners, City of Brownsville and Harlingen representatives might want to take a closer look at this scheme because the creation of a district also implies the creation of a board, a well-paid administration, and of course, offices and a staff to spend the money.
Hidalgo taxpayers said "no" and their poor aren't dying on the steps of their hospitals.Neither, we can assure you, will ours.
Cascos just entered Willacy County, but he is missed already.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

The voters will stick your Hospital District right up your ass Judge along with your two welfare pimp buddies; Lucio and his piece of shit son. How is that Lupus treating you Lucio Junior?

Anonymous said...

I think the elected officials need to go back to Austin and try harder to expand Medicaid so that all hard working Texans and Texas hospitals can benefit from the Affordable Care Act. It is unrealistic and inherently unfair to bring this proposal home to an area with a poverty rate above 40%. What the heck?

Anonymous said...

Lucios, won't win again. Brownsville say no to Hospital district. Hidalgo said "No", lets say no. There is a revolution going on ,right now, people are tired and disgusted.

Anonymous said...

We have onamacare.... We don't need a hospital distric. With onamacare we need no district... It solves everything!

Anonymous said...

Time to vote those three bastards out, they are nothing but pricks all three of them.

The Pissed Off Conservative said...

Ah, the hospital district cancer has spread to Cameron county.

I have to make a couple of corrections here Juan. The idea of the Hospital district is an idea conceived by the UT system because they don't want to pay for the whole hospital building they were trumpeting during the UTRGV pitch so now they recruited the Lucios to help pitch the scheme. Let's not forget that Cascos also wanted to be part of the scheme too but he was more of a low-key supporter since it would of looked bad on his pseudo-run for re-election.

Channel 5 ran a couple of stories about the medical district stunt and the residents of Hidalgo county struck it down once already.

It's funny watching all this no new tax crap from these clowns in one hand while trying to bait-and-switch the public with the other. Both liberals and the self-proclaimed conservatives that pollute the republican party right now are steaming piles of garbage.

Anonymous said...

The Lucios have sold their souls to special interests and any bill they sponsor is more likely story serve those special interests (health care organizations), not to serve you and I. The Lucios surely know that few property owners ever challenge property tax increases. Local politicians know this and use property tax increases rather than go to the people in an election for qa tax increase.

Anonymous said...

OUT WITH THE SUCIO LUCIOS AND OUT WITH THE WHORE OLIVEIRA!! OUT OF OFFICE YOU PIECES OF VILE SHIT! STOP RAPING THE PEOPLE OF THIS DISTRICT!!

Anonymous said...

We have been taking care of the indigents and paying our bills to the hospitals so why do we want a special district. I just don't see our city or our county lowering their taxes in the amounts that the new district would be taxing us. The city and county would find some more of their pet projects to spend our hard earned money. If Harlingen needs to raise money for the new Hospital, let them. We need to vote against this new district being developed just like Hidalgo did. Let's stop the rascals.

Anonymous said...

shut your mouths, people of Cameron. we rule. you lose.

-CDG

chief cool arrow said...

UT system has 11 to 12 billion in their PUF account monies from oil revenues, why don't they use that money instead of sticking it to the local taxpayers? lets ask julieta over at utb or wherever that witch is now a days. bola de cool arrows

The Pissed Off Conservative said...

Cool Arrow

UT doesn't want to use the PUF because they know that the medical district might not work.The smart kids usually move up north on campuses who's diplomas carry a lot more weight.

Anonymous said...

Pistol pete you great financial guru what happen in pharr texas and the international bridge fiasco that you quit and ran actually hid from the public and moved to cameron county? What about all those 300 families you affected when the city had no choice but to lay off 300 city employees. Dont tell me you already forgot? What year was that? 1997, 1998 or 1999. Thanks for the memories.

Anonymous said...

Aunt Jemima took us "Pendejos" for a cool 30,000,000 bucks on the so-call , "Partnership".

rita