.

This is local stuff, but the same damn thing is probably happening in your county.

For years, our Republican-run county government has been spending money like drunken sailors.  They have an edifice complex.  They love the sounds of a bulldozer, so they have built buildings we don’t need and/or are out-of-date before they even open, like the Taj MaLaw they’re building now.

They have hired all their buddies and spent more on ‘consultants’ than it costs to land on Boardwalk with three hotels.

To raise money for this massive spending without raising taxes, they simply got their friends elected to the Central Appraisal District and upped our home evaluations far beyond the true market value.  That way, they could say, “Lookie here, we haven’t raised your taxes and your house is worth more.  We Republicans are wonderful!”

“Well,” begins Juanita Jean Herownself, “this Ponzi scheme just fell apart like a five dollar suitcase in a bus station.”

Fort Bend County officials are worried that lawsuits filed against the county’s central appraisal district by property owners may negatively affect the county budget being put together.

“These legal battles could result in millions of dollars being paid back to taxpayers who were scammed over the past years by falsely inflating their property value,” Juanita says.

“Because of these lawsuits’ potential victories at trials, there is a strong possibility that the county will have to pay back money to property owners,” he said. “That will take away from the county revenue.”

Morrison said he believes the county may have to cut checks “in the millions” of dollars.

“Now, this wouldn’t be so bad except that our Republican county officials have already budgeted and spent that exact same millions of dollars,” Juanita continues, “so their position is that we should just accept that we got screwed and give them the money.”

“Am I upset about this?  Does a cat have climbing gear?”

The Fabulously wealthy Bob and Andy

“But, genius never sleeps, so I, of course, have a solution to this mess,” she proclaims.  “Our county judge, Bob Hebert, ran on the platform that we could trust him because he was – and these are his words – ‘independently wealthy’, so we could trust him with our money and he would never steal from us because he was fabulously rich!  Republican county commissioner Andy Meyers claimed that he was a financial expert, so I suspect he’s invested his own money well, and ours … not so much.”

“My suggestion is that both Andy and Bob refund their salaries to the taxpayers they’ve been screwing all these years.”

“THAT, my friends,” she grins, “is the market correcting itself.”