Some of you may have read about a large lawsuit being brought against the manufacturers of opioid prescription drugs by many localities throughout the country. In our neck of the woods, Smyth, Wythe, and Russell counties have joined and their lawyers have attempted to add Pulaski County to their client list. I’ll attempt to explain […]
If your news feed looks anything like ours right now, it is probably full of stories about Russia, the proposed new Pulaski County Middle School, and the Senate’s health care plan, in that order. We’re not going to touch the Russia story at this point, but we do want to take a look at how […]
Last night I spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting, in order to make sure that both they and the public were aware of the options available to them in response to the consolidated middle school resolution passed from the School Board. Their options are as follows: Do nothing- The Board of Supervisors is not […]
So I’ve gotten a lot of comments and concerns about wrapped debt financing. After spending several years working on legal issues related to the Financial Crisis, I completely understand people having an aversion to financing arrangements that look too good to be true. To be clear, a “wrapped” debt service is not an unusual financing […]
Now that we have a formal proposal for the new Pulaski County Middle School, I thought it was time to explain some of the numbers and try to address some of the common questions I’ve heard about the school. First, it’s important to understand the financing arrangement that the School Board has recommended to the […]
We’re all hearing a lot more about tax reform these days, and though no one who’s done their own taxes recently thinks the tax system is uncomplicated, tax reform makes navigating a 1040 seem simple. All proposals that deal with tax reform simplification have to balance out changes to tax rates with removal of deductions. […]
Last night, President Trump’s 2005 1040 form (his tax return) was released to the public. From various reports, including the White House, the numbers contained in that report appear accurate. Assuming those numbers are accurate, let’s take a look at the taxes then “billionaire” businessman Donald Trump paid in 2005. While you’ll see lots of […]
One of the challenges communities like Pulaski face is getting people, especially young people, to consider moving to and staying here. One of the biggest challenges for people seeking to move here, I can tell you from personal experience, is finding affordable healthcare. When I left my job in New York, our family’s monthly COBRA […]
We often hear about how the national debt is skyrocketing out of control, how we need to make tough choices in order to reduce it or face the consequences. No one ever seems to ask the simple question: is the size of the National Debt an actual hindrance to our economy or our government? First, […]
