Standard-Examiner: Ogden Hopes Plan Change Will Aid Small Businesses

Is your blogmeister the only one who's troubled that even under a new mayoral administration, Ogden City Government continues to lurch at top speed upon the course of unrestrained borrowing and spending?

To kick off the morning discussion we'll refer to a story which appeared in yesterday's Standard-Examiner, reporting that, in addition to getting into the student scholarship business, Ogden City Big Government Planners are also setting the stage to get into the loan business. Here's the lede:

OGDEN -- The city is proposing a change to its five-year plan that includes an amendment to help new small-business owners.

The city's five-year consolidated plan includes a proposal to create a Community Development Block Grant-funded "loan loss" program aimed at promoting business development by leveraging grants to secure loans from larger loan pools that could then be given to small businesses.

City officials say the loan program is needed to provide otherwise viable small businesses with loan options when traditional loan and investment opportunities aren't available.

Read the full story here:

• Ogden hopes plan change will aid small businesses

The gist of it? Even in these tight economic times, when beleaguered Ogden taxpayers are pinching their pennies to manage their own personal expenses, the BIG SPENDING SCHEMERS at Ogden City Hall are now forming up a whole new raft of shell entities and unleashing a brand new wave of "leveraged" public borrowing:

The new program would use block grant loans to secure loans that would be issued by Ogden Reinvestment Corporation. An initial amount of $305,000 would come from the sale of six CDBG-funded small-business loans.

The funds would be used to provide a 10 percent security backing for loans issued by ORC to small businesses. The loan pool available to ORC contains $3 million and comes from the Ogden Industrial Development Corporation.

The goal of the program is to take the $305,000 initial investment and leverage that money to secure $3 million in loans that would then be available to the business community.

Yesiree, folks, although the ever-energetic Big Government schemer Boss Godfrey is now gone, it appears that the spirit of aggressive Big Government intervention in all endeavors (those which do NOT fit within the framework of the "proper role" of municipal government) remains alive and well, probably due, at least in part, to the continuing influence of Godfrey's Business Development Department "A" Team, who are obviously still ramming Godfrey's old programs forward.

It would also be interesting to know where newly elected Mayor Mike Caldwell stands on all this. So far however he's saying nada, zero, and zip. While his laid-back style does definitely differ considerably from Godfrey's annoyingly flamboyant approach, it is beginning to become clear wethinks, reading between the lines, that with respect to the aggressive accumulation of public debt, and the subsidizing of the private business sector, Caldwell's doing nothing to apply the brakes.

So what about it, O gentle Ones? Is your blogmeister the only one who's troubled that even under a new mayoral administration, Ogden City Government continues to lurch at top speed upon the course of unrestrained Godfreyite borrowing and spending?

Is it possible that the below-linked tune soon will become Ogden taxpayers' new theme song?

• Meet the New Boss Same as the Old Boss (Won't get Fooled Again)

So what about it folks?