Latest / Seth Grossman – Liberty and Prosperity / 10.17.26 Seth Grossman WPG Radio: Early voting, mail/messenger ballots win elections. Why houses are ridiculously expensive today. Stockton never wanted Atlantic City campus. Sell it!

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10.17.26 Seth Grossman WPG Radio: Early voting, mail/messenger ballots win elections. Why houses are ridiculously expensive today. Stockton never wanted Atlantic City campus. Sell it! · Seth Grossman – Liberty and Prosperity

• 0:00
  - This,
• 0:01
  - development in Atlantic City
• 0:03
  - proposed by Jared
• 0:05
  - Kushner, the son-in-law
• 0:07
  - of president Trump. About twenty years ago, he
• 0:10
  - bought this property.
• 0:12
  - Real old timers know it as the trolley
• 0:14
  - barn.
• 0:14
  - That was where the trolleys that came down
• 0:16
  - Atlantic Avenue,
• 0:18
  - and they had a turntable there that would
• 0:20
  - turn the trolleys around so they could come
• 0:22
  - back out again. And then I guess around
• 0:24
  - 1954,
• 0:25
  - 1955,
• 0:26
  - they got rid of the trolleys,
• 0:28
  - and, they had the Atlantic City
• 0:31
  - black and cream colored,
• 0:34
  - buses would go back and forth from from
• 0:37
  - Uptown Atlantic City down to Longport and Margate.
• 0:41
  - And then they had a discount shopping... Discount
• 0:44
  - store called gar... Garwood Mills. Locals called it
• 0:47
  - garbage mills. That's where I bought my first
• 0:50
  - Beatles album for 99¢
• 0:52
  - in 1964.
• 0:54
  - And about twenty years ago,
• 0:56
  - Jared Kushner
• 0:58
  - with the son-in-law of,
• 1:00
  - Donald Trump,
• 1:02
  - bought that land, and he didn't do much
• 1:04
  - with it until a couple years ago. And
• 1:06
  - then he applied for plans to build, 350
• 1:11
  - houses there. And lately, I think he downscaled
• 1:15
  - it. It's only gonna be a 180 houses.
• 1:18
  - And he negotiated a deal,
• 1:20
  - to get special zoning laws and also a
• 1:24
  - tax abatement
• 1:25
  - where none of those houses
• 1:27
  - will have to pay full Atlantic City real
• 1:30
  - estate taxes for thirty years.
• 1:32
  - Plan one is the city makes a beautiful
• 1:35
  - zoning plan
• 1:36
  - that applies to the whole town.
• 1:39
  - And under that plan,
• 1:41
  - anything anybody wants to build is in violation
• 1:44
  - of something.
• 1:45
  - So instead of being a plan for a
• 1:46
  - better town, all the zoning laws do is
• 1:50
  - they keep anybody
• 1:51
  - from building anything
• 1:53
  - or expanding anything or improving anything unless they
• 1:56
  - have a whole lot of political clout, money,
• 1:59
  - and influence.
• 2:00
  - And that's not just in Atlantic City. You
• 2:03
  - see it in Somers Point.
• 2:05
  - You see it with,
• 2:06
  - in Ocean City. Eustace Meade trying to build
• 2:11
  - a very modest,
• 2:13
  - ICONA hotel,
• 2:15
  - where the old Wonderland,
• 2:16
  - Pier Amusement or Wonderland Amusement Park used to
• 2:19
  - be.
• 2:20
  - Jared Kushner has influence.
• 2:22
  - He's allowed to build a project
• 2:24
  - that nobody else is allowed to to build.
• 2:27
  - The second problem is
• 2:29
  - to
• 2:30
  - build it, he's gonna guarantee whoever buys those
• 2:33
  - houses or rents those houses that you don't
• 2:36
  - have to pay full Atlantic City real estate
• 2:38
  - tax for thirty years.
• 2:40
  - That puts a strain on everybody else because
• 2:43
  - people in that project, they're gonna have kids.
• 2:45
  - They're gonna go to schools.
• 2:47
  - Every school cost the taxpayers $25,000
• 2:51
  - a year or more
• 2:53
  - per student.
• 2:54
  - They need police. They need trash pickup,
• 2:57
  - and,
• 2:58
  - they're not paying for it.
• 3:01
  - And that creates another problem.
• 3:03
  - You have a whole class of taxpayers
• 3:06
  - who are not paying taxes.
• 3:09
  - Their taxes are not gonna go up for
• 3:11
  - thirty years,
• 3:12
  - but they could vote. So if a candidate
• 3:14
  - says, vote for me, and I'll give you
• 3:16
  - this, this, this, and that, it's gonna cost
• 3:18
  - a fortune,
• 3:19
  - they're not gonna care
• 3:21
  - because somebody else will be paying for it.
• 3:23
  - But then George Tibbets, he made a very
• 3:25
  - interesting observation. He said, well, this is a
• 3:27
  - garbage development because this development
• 3:30
  - is not going to produce
• 3:32
  - any
• 3:33
  - money for the city. Even if they did
• 3:35
  - not have
• 3:37
  - the tax abatement for thirty years,
• 3:39
  - the whole idea that you're gonna have kids
• 3:41
  - living in these houses,
• 3:43
  - and they're gonna cost $25,000
• 3:45
  - a year. So we don't wanna have this
• 3:46
  - kind of housing. We wanna have tourist housing
• 3:49
  - like the... Or the Baltimore Inner Harbor.
• 3:51
  - And that is a real
• 3:53
  - problem that nobody is talking about. Nobody is
• 3:57
  - building
• 3:58
  - new houses
• 3:59
  - for families with kids because you know if
• 4:03
  - you build a $300,000
• 4:05
  - house
• 4:06
  - or a $200,000
• 4:07
  - house,
• 4:08
  - that house is going to be paying total
• 4:11
  - about... Maybe about $6,000
• 4:13
  - to $8,000
• 4:14
  - a year in taxes.
• 4:16
  - But if that family in that house has
• 4:19
  - two kids, it's gonna be costing
• 4:21
  - $50,000
• 4:22
  - a year, $25,000
• 4:24
  - for each kid
• 4:25
  - just for
• 4:26
  - the kids in school. So every town is
• 4:28
  - saying, we don't wanna build that kind of
• 4:30
  - housing. We will come up with every technicality
• 4:33
  - in the book.
• 4:34
  - We will come up with,
• 4:36
  - zoning rules and min... Minimum lot size and
• 4:38
  - this, that, this restriction, that restriction. So what
• 4:41
  - does that do? It drives up the cost
• 4:44
  - of housing
• 4:45
  - so young people say, we can't afford a
• 4:47
  - house anymore. And then they get angry and
• 4:50
  - they say, well, let's bring down the whole
• 4:52
  - system and vote for a socialist who's promising
• 4:54
  - us free housing.
• 4:56
  - What's the way to fix this problem? Ask
• 4:58
  - ourselves the first question. Why does it cost
• 5:01
  - $25,000
• 5:02
  - a year
• 5:03
  - to educate
• 5:04
  - a kid
• 5:06
  - in
• 5:06
  - a public school? So that's the issue that,
• 5:09
  - I'd love to talk to George Tibbetts and
• 5:11
  - explore that a little more.