Author: Larry Littlefield

I was furious to read a Wall Street Journal opinion essay by former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein on the effect of teacher pensions on public education. Not because of what he said – I’ve said as much myself. But because of what he didn’t say, and when he said what he did. Come on Mr. Klein; you’ll have to do better than that.

From a letter to Newsday: "Your story, "$9B deficit crisis" [News, Dec. 27] fails to mention that state retirees pay no state income tax on their pensions…As a private-sector worker, this is patently offensive to me. Why isn't everyone paying their fair share?"

It is patently offensive to me too. But as a current worker who does not wish to be cheating younger people when (if) I'm able to retire, I'm also offended that private sector retirement income is exempt from state and local income taxes up to $20,000, and Social Security income is exempt for all. Why should a retired couple with $80,000 in retirement and Social Security income pay no state and local income tax, while a family of four struggling with $50,000 in wage income pays at a high rate?

I was stunned to read on this website that millions of dollars was diverted from the MTA 15 years ago to bail out Nassau County, which is now being forced by a court decision to pay money back. Every party to that deal, everyone involved with it, did something very, very wrong. It is outrageous — an hidden debt from the point of view of Nassau County residents, a theft of funds from the point of view of the MTA. This should be investigated. How many other off the books debts like this are they? And if this is the common practice, should we be surprised that the state legislature and Comptroller are borrowing money from the pension funds?

Now that the New York Times is publishing more articles on the public employee pension disaster, I've noticed a pattern in the extensive comments. They are from all over the country. Some talk about the massive amounts public employees have contributed to their own pensions. Or how the government, which is to say taxpayers, failed to contribute their share, and taxes are not that high. Or how retired public employees would face destitution if their pensions were not paid, because they were not included in Social Security saving those taxpayers 6.2% of their wages. And all the state and local taxes pensioners have to pay. Everywhere in the U.S., public employees, who already had the richest retirement benefits, cut political deals over the past 15 years to get even richer pensions beyond what they were promised when hired, just as the top executives who already earned the most pay cut office political deals to grab even more. But many of the comments asserting that public employees have been robbed as well are true in many other places, the places the comments are coming from.

But not in New York City.  I ask that the reporting reflect those differences, and stop asserting that attempts to solve the problem solely at the expense of younger generations is an "of course" rather than yet more robbing the cradle. The national story is Generation Greed, and pensions are just one aspect.

I strongly suggest that those who believe I am onto something, with regard to Generation Greed's long term effects on those coming after, read this article about Europe. While younger generations have become worse off than those who came before for some time in this country, the best off and most articulate had continued to prosper until recently, or so they believed because rising debts papered over many things. That's why, in my view, Generation Greed was followed by Generation Apathy.

But in Europe that is no longer the case — the young educated are suffering too. Next up, Generation Outrage. But the real damage will be felt when those born later become old themselves, and really suffer because their countries were bankrupted by those who came before — somehow even more so in peace in the past 30 years than by two devastating wars in the first half of the 20th Century.

Four vehicles have passed over blacktop in the past couple of hours or so. With every pass, I see potholes that won’t be filled and garbage that won’t be picked up in the future, as these costs suck money out of an already diminished future.

I’ll make one more post about the snow and then leave it to the noisemakers and social climbers. As noted previously, the snow emergency rules are not what I would have expected. They don’t say you shouldn’t drive. They only say you shouldn’t park on snow emergency routes, and shouldn’t drive there without chains or snow tires.

Well, I looked over the list of snow emergency streets — the priority streets. There aren’t a lot of them. For example, I live in the middle of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. The nearest snow emergency routes are 3rd and 4th Avenue in lower Park Slope, Coney Island Avenue in Flatbush, Fort Hamilton Parkway in Kensignton, and the Prospect Expressway. In the whole of Windsor Terrace, plowing is theoretically a lower priority, and everyone is free to drive without snow tires and get stuck in the middle of the road. What would happen if there was an emergency — a fire or someone needed an ambulance on my street, and the Prospect Expressway exit ramp was the closed location passable?

From the New York Times: “Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, said the problems late Sunday underscored how the city could not rely on outside contractors to help with snow removal and other jobs in such storms, particularly during a holiday weekend. ‘You can never count on the privates, because they don’t have to show up,’ he said. ‘What obligation do they have? The mayor can’t order them out. The commissioner can’t order them out.’” From the New York Post: “Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts — a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned… ‘They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important,’ said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.’”

Now let’s get one thing clear. There are no Sanitation Department budget cuts. There are no cuts in most agencies, except for the usual suspects like parks, libraries, the Administration for Children’s Services and public higher education. If there was, taxes would be going down, and no one is suggesting that. What is happening is a huge shift of resources from people providing services today (public or private) to debts run up by Generation Greed, and retirement and senior health care that they had promised themselves but chose not to pay for (or, in another factor, cut a deal to retroactively enhance). And this is just getting started.

With rumors flying that Bloomberg has a conspiracy against all the boroughs except Manhattan and the Sanitation workers engaged in a job action, the critics clearly have created an over-reaction. We’ve had garbage trucks going by twice this evening scraping blacktop on my block. Look guys, if your area is clear go home, get some sleep, and eventually pick up the garbage OK?

The real problems are there were not enough streets clear during the height of the storm to provide emergency access, which may have led to tragedy, and all the stuck vehicles in the road inhibited recovery. Let’s think about what to do about that. If the state government is not involved and it doesn’t cost money, this may be fixable, and the next storm could hit at any time. Five of the top seven in the past 15 years. Four of the top seven in seven years. Two of the top seven in the past year.

I’ve been thinking through the response to the recent snowstorm in comparison with “the big one” in 1996. That storm is down the list from the point of view of Central Park, but it hit Brooklyn much harder. There was 30 inches on the table in my back yard according to a tape measure, before the windstorm (as in this storm) knocked all the snow from the rooftops down into the yards and streets.

The good news is that as I remember it (MSM organizations have morgues and should be able to make these comparisons more easily) subway service was restored and my street was plowed 24 hours and several days earlier in 2010 than it had been in 1996. But the 2010 storm was much worse in one key respect – the lack of emergency access during and in the first 24 hours after the storm, and the number of stuck and abandoned cars, trucks, buses and eventually plows and emergency vehicles littering the streets.