There may be a depression but the Tax Collecting County Commissioners are still deep into Cuyahoga taxpayer pockets.

Deep, I mean.

We have the monthly update on the tax cost via the Med Mart sales tax increase, the Browns Stadium sin tax and the Arts & Culture cigarette tax.

The Med Mart May sales tax – a quarter percent to 7.75 in Cuyahoga County – produced $3,018,629.56, up from $2,974,836.56 in April.

The total take for the proposed Med Mart from Cuyahoga taxpayers: $58,682,893.71 since January 2008. (The PD recently reported incorrectly that the tax has generated $82.76 million.)

The PD did report that MMPI (Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. of Chicago), picked by the County Commissioners to build and operate the Med Mart and Convention center, had already been paid $333,333.

Nice money, if you can get it.

The sin tax take for the Lerner family, owners of the Browns, has hit $52,946,168.75 with a May contribution from taxpayers of $1,087,777.37. The $52 million has been collected since August, 2005. It goes to pay for stadium bonds.

The Arts & Culture tax, solely on cigarettes, produced $1,581,410.70 in May to increase the total take from smokers to $44,373,310.81, up from $42,791,900 from last month’s total. It goes to art and cultural institutions.

Once again, these are regressive taxes that weigh more heavily on ordinary people and they often fund facilities and events not easily accessible to ordinary people. They thus perpetuate the inequality of income.

Once again I note that these regional facilities and events are paid for largely by Cuyahoga and Cleveland residents though they are used regionally.

So much again for Regionalism. It stops apparently at the Cuyahoga County border.