McKeon's ideas bad for High Desert

Buck McKeon shows up again defending his CEMEX land trade by saying Victorville will get all this cheap land from CEMEX when CEMEX sells the land to Victorville after a mining contract in Santa Clarita gets canceled and the United States government gives away land being held in public trust for the U.S. citizens (that maybe we as citizens should have a crack at buying at an auction rather than giving a sweetheart deal to a Mexican mining corporation). And this is a good deal?

McKeon proves he has been in Washington too long to have a clue what is going on. By not having the mining operations in LA County, the State of California loses: one, jobs (not just jobs directly involved in mining, but rail jobs for loads that won’t be shipped, contractor’s workers who won’t be servicing the equipment, delivering supplies); two, sales tax on purchases those workers and companies make and equipment that has to be bought; three, equipment taxes that the county collects; and four, state income tax on the revenue stream. In our economic mess, McKeon’s solution is a trainwreck — it takes away the jobs, income and tax base we need!

For Victorville, the deal is a nightmare — the area in question does not have enough water for development (the wells have a poor recharge rate), which means if Victorville should get the land, the water will have to come from existing supplies. Didn’t Victorville just jack up water rates 30 percent? Who do you think will pay for this folly? You. With Victorville’s infrastructure needing attention, where is the money going to come for the sewers, roads, schools and improvements for this new piece of Victorville (assuming the rows of new houses in the CEMEX subdivision won’t be rows of vandal bait)?

So what is Buck’s new big idea, give a tax credit so local car dealers can sell more cars that people can’t afford to buy or keep, while criticizing the plan that President-elect Barack Obama is trying to put together that would give tax cuts to low- and middle-income families. Actually to sell more cars to people that afford them and car get financing, all the manufacturers and dealers need to do is reduce the price of the cars — heck, they aren’t moving anyway and why should the car industry be exempt from what everyone else has to do when they sell a car, a house or piece of furniture that does not move at the price asked for — you reduce the price. Why should the government subsidize inflated car pricing and dealership greed? Maybe Buck hasn’t heard the news — more and more people across the country are letting their insurance lapse on their cars so they can put groceries on the table.

Bob Conaway, Barstow