Reform Skelos Style: Don't overspend your allotment like those irresponsible Democrats. Just increase it by an obscene amount and then stay within your budget.
Category: News and Opinion
The Other Oil Dependence
|I normally write about issues that are not being addressed in my view, but today I find that having already taken the time to download data, the Bloomberg Administration is already proposing what I was about to suggest. Ah well, might as well write the post anyway because my justifications are in addition to the Mayor’s.
Residents of the Northeast might think they have a reason to be smug about rising oil prices, since a relatively large share of them use mass transit or walk to work, and those who drive tend to do so for shorter distances. But the Northeast leads the nation in another form of oil dependence – on heating oil. As shown in the attached spreadsheet, the states where the highest share of homes use heating oil are along the Atlantic Coast, with the percentage falling from 75.6% in Maine to 7.1% in North Carolina as one travels from north to south. New York City and the rest of New York State are in the middle of this pack at 35.2% and 30.4%. The U.S. average is just 7.3%. Therefore, Northeastern homes share with U.S. drivers elsewhere the economic and national security vulnerabilities of dependence on foreign oil.
The 54th AD is Among the State’s Poorest, but is Surely the Most Poorly Reported (Or Why I Will Never Get Another Link)
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“Man, you gotta write a "NYC Legislative Vacancy for Dummies" handbook for all of us!” —Colin Campbell, The Brooklyn Politics Blog
The Gateway (Jews and Porn Edition)
|A barrier is broken as a gay male is appointed White House Social Secretary.
COMING TOGETHER FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH
|A FAMOUS ACTOR, A DEAD PRESIDENT, AN UNHERALDED ICON, TWO DISTRICT LEADERS, A NEW BOOK, TWO AUTHORS, A COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR AND AN ASSEMBLYMAN: ALL COMING TOGETHER FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH (FEB. 2011).
If you stick with me on this column, I am sure that long before the end, you will be both edified and entertained. Who knows, it may even help you change the way you viewed “Black History Month”.
Is President Obama Anti-Business?
|The rants keep rolling in, but I know what they are really about: Say on Pay. "Washington, D.C., Jan. 25, 2011 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted rules concerning shareholder approval of executive compensation and 'golden parachute' compensation arrangements as required under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act."
The entitlement of these executives sounds very much like the public employee union leaders with their retroactive pension enhancements. The stock market bubble ended more than a decade ago, but some people still expect their pay — or pensions — to be based on an assumption of soaring stock prices. But don't dare question it. When will we reach the statute of limitations on executive claims that their excess pay packages are based on the creation of "shareholder value," and retroactive pension enhancements are "free" because stocks will go up more than 8.0% per year from the inflated levels of 2000?
The Gateway (More 54 and Other Stuff Too Edition)
|At last, someone writes an article about the 54th AD special election that answers the crucial question of who controls the district's Democratic County Committee.
There is No Public Advocate in New York
|At the risk of endlessly repeating myself, let me say again that politics in New York is dominated by two groups. Producers of public services, primarily the public employee unions but also representatives of contractors and the non-profiteers, who are always looking to charge more to provide less. And wealthy people and business interests that do not rely on public services and benefits themselves, and want to pay as little as possible for others to have them. Both sides will claim to speak for the beneficiaries of public services, and each will sometimes criticize and try to work against the interests of the other. But neither cares about public services, or has any sense of community with the people who use them. So no one is going to point out the sort of inconvenient truths noted in my series of posts on the proposed FY 2012 budget.
I speak not only of the so called “Public Advocate,” whose only job is to go around demanding something for nothing, and then imply that they could deliver it when they run for Mayor in a few years. I speak also of every member of the New York City Council. When the leaders of the public employees unions, or the New York Building Congress, or Local 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association, show up and at City Council budget hearings and demand more funding (without saying from where it should come), will anyone ask about the fairness of what they are providing and what they are charging for it? Will anyone bring up all the retroactive pension deals, the soaring cost of capital construction, the level of staffing here compared with elsewhere, etc.? The answer is no. Public services and benefits are what made a good life for the mass middle class possible. And they are being destroyed from the inside. Don’t let anyone’s propaganda tell you otherwise.
The Gateway Introduces Two New Terms to Political Discourse: “Deathers” and “The Tea Dance Party”
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As befits a member of the clergy of an oft-ridiculed religious denomination, Huckabee continues his record of decency on the matter of Obama's religious beliefs. Sadly, this is such an anomaly in his party that it is news.
The FY 2012 New York City Budget Proposal: “Other Agencies” and Community Colleges
|Since the documents I am using as the basis of this analysis of the New York City budget are in the “Budget Summary” documents, a large number of agencies have ended up lumped together as “Other,” and that is how they are listed in the spreadsheet attached to the first post in this series. The largest among the included agencies are the Department of Environmental Protection, which manages water and sewer infrastructure, the Department of Transportation, which manages the city’s streets, Parks, Libraries, Cultural Affairs, and Housing Preservation and Development. A host of smaller agencies that could best be described as the bureaucracy. The budget proposal for these agencies, and the city-funded portion of the City University, are discussed in this post.