I realize that I'm a little late to cover this (I don't keep up with current events as well as I used to), but I'm so angry about it I'm going to do it anyway. For those who haven't heard, the ultra conservative U.S. Supreme Court has once again decided to erode the principals that this nation was founded on. The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses... even against their will... for private economic development.
Just to make sure you're absolutely clear on this... cities, counties, states and other governments can now literally seize a person's home via eminent domain and give it to someone else for virtually any reason (or no reason at all for that matter)!
Before this unconstitutional decision, an elderly couple that purchased a house for $60,000 in 1940 couldn't be driven out of their home by property taxes just because it is now worth $500,000. Under the Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision, local government could now simply seize the house and sell/give it to a developer who in turn sells it to someone else at a tidy profit. Since the house was sold, taxes would then be reassessed based on the $500,000 current value and the city/county/state suddenly would see a big increase in tax revenue. Never mind the fact that the house used to be the legal and private property of someone else! The developers get a profit, the government gets more taxes and the original property owner gets screwed.
It used to be a given that governments could only use eminent domain if the seized property was going to directly be used for the public good, such as for building a new highway. The idea behind this is to give the government a chance to forcibly evict people from their home in extreme cases where the land is desperately needed for a project that will have tremendous public benefit and where the homeowner does not want to sell or cooperate with the project. This court decision just threw that idea out the window and onto the manure pile. Now, something as trivial as increased tax revenue could be used to invoke eminent domain. All a developer needs to do now is bribe his favorite politician and *POOF*, the land that they want is seized and handed over to them.
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Actually, it was the liberals who voted for this, not the conservatives.
It was a Supreme Court ruling.
look at who on the supreme court voted for it!
Why do you always have to rain on my parade?! :-P
"Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority which included Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer, based the decision largely on whether the "City's development plan serves a 'public purpose'." He stated that "the City (of New London) has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -but by no means limited to-new jobs and increased tax revenue." "Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment."
Well, Allan, my boss is the one who told us this and he's a big time democrat. IT's hard to figure out what is going with these pussy democrats!!
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