[fabsroman]

Multibeard,

I am licensed to practice law in Washington, DC, but I haven't applied to be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court because I believe an attorney needs to have at least 10 years of experience to be admitted. I live so close to DC that it is hard to avoid it. In fact, I can be down on the mall in about 40 minutes on the metro and can be inside the Washington, DC border within 20 minutes. Granted, I do not enjoy going down there much and would prefer to head north, but I still have to go down there every once in a while.

States and the District of Columbia try to attract business to them because it brings in money in several ways. First off, it creates employment, which results in additional income tax. It also results in additional sales tax collected because the people earning the money will spend a good portion of it. It also causes increased home sales/construction if the employment market is tight because people will move in to work at the new factory/company if there isn't a lot of labor available. With new homes comes additional property taxes.

How do you think Washington, DC got the expos to move here and become the Nationals? They made them a ton of promises. How do you think Baltimore, Maryland got the Browns to move here and become the Ravens? They made them a ton of promises and built them a new stadium on taxpayers money. Of course, I am not a big Baltimore fan and I despise the Orioles because of Peter Angelos, yet my tax dollars went into building stadiums, and costly stadiums at that, for both the Ravens and the Orioles. I am at the point where I do not care to follow pro sports too much, so why do I have to pay for their stadiums.

Goverments aren't perfect, but at least ours tries very hard to be. Things change over time, and this opinion might change over time too. Look at all the change that occurred over the Terri Schiavo case. Let's just wait until the first time this new court case is used to take somebody's property at a reduced value and sell it to a corporation and an extremely high price. There will probably be a huge outcry.

Then again, it might be best for these hold out people to take the money offered by the corporation initially and be done with the whole thing. There was a case by me where everybody on a corner sold their homes to a landlord so he could build a shopping center. However, one guy with road access held out. His backyard view became that of a shopping center and all around his house was asphalt. When he wanted to sell, nobody wanted to buy the place.

Sometimes people hold out just because they are stubborn. Other times they have a good reason to do so. It is just tough to deal with.

My biggest issue here is that where do all the people go that get displaced out of these ghettos when things get revitalized? We are merely shifting these places from one place to another. The bigger issue is dealing with the people that need low income housing, but that isn't an easy issue.