Early Returns. Interest in tax cuts for the rich downtown crowd less of a blog hurdle

Poaching and Counter-pokes.

Early Returns - A Post-Gazette Journal Because it's more fun than the last issue, dueling tax abatements.

In the duel, on this issue, I see the shot from one headed into the heart of another. Meanwhile, the counter shot from the one just hit in the heart goes between the eyes of the foe. Both get tagged. Both shots passed in the moment. Both are dead on.

Watching on the sideline, in horror, are all the downtown developers, the rich residents and the authorities.

Hiding in the hills, but hearing the shots are the kids who in failing schools, the transit riders who can't catch a bus that never arrives, an the rest of the citizens in the neighborhoods who are seeing and planning for the next wave in outward migration.

It isn't FUN, as the early-return blog says, to talk and blog about the dueling tax abatements because nobody is going to win. Both candidates are killing the region. Both candidates prove to be nearly identical. Both are bleeding liberals quick to give away the treasured income of today to increase debt and sway potential political donors. There is no victory here, except the wealthy. And that win is only fleeting.