Economy
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Rent Control: The Data Collection Begins
Read more: Rent Control: The Data Collection BeginsIt’s hard to believe that a full year has passed since rent control was passed by the County Council at the behest of Will Jawando and Kristin Mink. On July 18, 2023 I published the first snapshot of the county’s rental market. On October 7, 2023, I published a second snapshot. Since then I’ve been…
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MoCo’s “Boost” UBI-Test Program, Pushed by CM Jawando, is Getting Scaled Back — And We Still Don’t Have a “First Draft” of the Urban Institute’s “Evaluation”
Read more: MoCo’s “Boost” UBI-Test Program, Pushed by CM Jawando, is Getting Scaled Back — And We Still Don’t Have a “First Draft” of the Urban Institute’s “Evaluation”Remember the no-strings “free cash” pilot program started in FY 2023 (calendar year 2022) by the Montgomery County Council? Funded in part by your tax dollars (over $3 million, although part was provided by a private grantor), the pilot program was another attempt by some on the County Council to “be like DC” and hand…
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Jawando, Mink, and Sayles throw cannabis prisoners under the CASA bus
Read more: Jawando, Mink, and Sayles throw cannabis prisoners under the CASA busUnder the Revenue Act of 1862, the Union seized land from Southern landowners, and eventually auctioned those lands to freed slaves. In 1865, General Sherman issued Special Field Orders 15, allowing the confiscation of 400,000 acres of land in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, dividing it into parcels of 40 acres to be settled by…
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Positive News on Licensing
Read more: Positive News on LicensingYou probably know the maxim “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” The earliest instance we have of that maxim is from London’s The Spectator, a daily publication during the years 1711–1712. Just as today’s coffee shops provide free WiFi to bring in customers, so London’s coffee shops shared copies of The Spectator…
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Forcing MoCo’s Poor to Pay for Our Renewable Sensibilities
Read more: Forcing MoCo’s Poor to Pay for Our Renewable SensibilitiesHere at Clean Slate MoCo we are very cautious about discussing issues at the national level. I’m begging an exception for this post, because we have a confluence of policies at the national and local level that can only be considered a war against the poor. In May 2024 President Biden increased the tariff on…
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Child Investment Fund: bigotry now, prosperity never
Read more: Child Investment Fund: bigotry now, prosperity neverOne of the most amazing books I ever read is Poverty and Prosperity by the economist Deepak Lal. In that book, Professor Lal outlines how freeing the economic markets in India and China raised fully one-fourth of the entire world’s population out of crushing poverty and wealth inequality within 40 years. This book is so…
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Council Member Really Wants You to Know: He was Named ‘2024 Legislator of the Year’
Read more: Council Member Really Wants You to Know: He was Named ‘2024 Legislator of the Year’MoCo Councilmember “At Large” Gabe Albornoz (Democrat) really really wants you to know he was named “Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce Legislator of the Year”. So much so that he begins his e-mail to tax-paying constituents about his award… and then continues the whole communication to residents talking about… this award. Here is another excerpt…
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The Takoma Park City Machine – How Takoma Park Uses Tax Dollars to Press Forward an Ideological Agenda to MoCo, Maryland and Beyond
Read more: The Takoma Park City Machine – How Takoma Park Uses Tax Dollars to Press Forward an Ideological Agenda to MoCo, Maryland and BeyondAlways follow the money and the influencers. Oh, and the 501c3s, c4s, etc. The City of Takoma Park’s influence on MoCo government policy has been covered here before but a quick review of the 501c3 non-profit Old Takoma Business Association’s (OTBA) website provides more visual examples of what this tiny town (population 17,500) does with…
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Tale as Old as Time – Once Government (Taxpayer) Largesse Dries Up, Another Rockville Business Moves On
Read more: Tale as Old as Time – Once Government (Taxpayer) Largesse Dries Up, Another Rockville Business Moves OnDawson’s Market, a higher-priced grocer (actually the only grocery store) in Rockville Town Square is departing, after threatening the same action about six years ago because of quote “declining sales” back in 2019. Per Sebastien Kraft with MoCo360 Media: This isn’t surprising in the least. In fact, it goes to the heart of why government,…
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OIG: Where Talented Investigators Do a Mediocre Job
Read more: OIG: Where Talented Investigators Do a Mediocre JobClean Slate MoCo and other opposition outlets hold paramount the responsibility and accountability for the county’s elected, appointed, and shadow leadership. Not everyone is comfortable taking the opposition outlets seriously, and for them there is the county’s Office of the Inspector General. The OIG is tasked with the following (source): Review the effectiveness and efficiency…