You asked for them, so 'here's the facts, ma'am'

PAMELA HOLLISTER wrote the following rebuttal to a Dispatch letter facetiously questioning our facts used in RICOCAT letters, this appeared in the August 27 Dispatch/Argus. "An August 24 letter in the Dispatch criticized RICOCAT letters for not including specific supporting data in each of our letters. There is only so much data we can provide within the allowed 250 word limit. Supporting data is found for all our statements among the 125 posts at voteno2tax.blogspot.com. Everyone is welcome to visit our blog. ..... To provide a few of the desired numbers: > We reported gas price differences on July 24 and July 16, last time we checked Sam's Club gasoline was $2.69 in Moline and $2.35 in Davenport, a 34 cent difference and there were many Illinois motorists fueling up in Davenport; > July 18 we reported average property taxes, Illinois $3,939, Iowa $2,542, Indiana $1,507; July 18 we also covered worker's compensation costs; > July 20 we reported that 96,000 Illinois residents left in 2014, 1.4 million since 1990; > July 20 we also reported that Scott County collected $147.4 million dollars in sales taxes while Rock Island County collected only $74.5 million, much of that difference is Illinoisans shopping in Iowa; Most RICo shopping is done in Moline and Rock Island where the sales tax is 7.5 percent, 9 percent on prepared food and liquor; June 5 we reported that there were 186 housing starts in Scott County in 2014 compared to six in Rock Island County. ..... Many other facts and figures can be found at voteno2tax.blogspot.com. ..... Many of these figures came from the pages of The Dispatch and should be familiar to conscientious readers of this newspaper."