July 02, 2009… The tax burden in Cuyahoga County keeps mounting, recession or depression notwithstanding.

I mentioned recently that the City of Cleveland paid an annual $452,724 in property taxes for the Browns Stadium. County figures show that taxpayers also contributed $54,218,411 more in taxes to help the billionaire Lerner family. All regressive taxes, naturally.

The latest figures on the sin tax – originally assessed in 1990 for Gateway – show the $54-million now collected for Browns stadium. That’s in addition to the more than $220 million collected for Gateway.

Voters when they thought they might lose the Browns (horrors!) extended the sin tax to help pay for a new football stadium.

In June, Cuyahoga County taxpayers added $1.27 million to the kitty. Since August of 2005, the sin tax has produced $54.2 million, all distributed to pay for the football stadium.

Thus far $12.6 million has come from smokers, $19.3 million from alcohol drinkers, $17.7 million from beer drinkers and $4.3 million from wine drinkers.

Smokers have also contributed $46.8 million to the Arts & Culture kitty of Cuyahoga County.

I mentioned earlier that the increased quarter-percent sales tax for the Medical Mart & Convention Center cost county taxpayers $61.8 million so far. This tax started in January 2008.

So, the depressed County taxpayers have paid for these three ventures: Some $162.9 million.

Keep giving ‘til it hurts. Oh, it already does?