Category: News and Opinion

I think they are serious. As far as I can tell, the American City Business Journals organization doesn't have a sense of humor. "A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks. 'Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,' said the War College report.

Anyone who knows even a little about public finance, and cares even a little about public services, particularly future public services, is sick of this bullshit. But if you feel the need to hear it from someone other than me, read this.

http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/sheinkopf-makes-pete-king-argument-about-kennedy

Like more than one local blogger (Michael Bouldin and Dan Millstone come to mind) I recently discovered that post-election malaise is not restricted to the bad years. To top it off, I recently encountered Facebook and found the ability to connect with 30 years of my history in one night more addicting than heroin. The last time a site (Jdate) had such an impact, I ended up a husband and father in less than a year and a half.

This time, by the time I came to, my brilliant idea that Abner Mikva should be made caretaker Senator from Illinois had already been used by Michael Tomasky (we won’t even talk about the consequences of my failure to advise Malcolm Smith). It seems a good time to get back to work.

The AARP-eligible people who control out institutions can never do enough for their contemporaries. In Albany, they have joyfully handed out pension enrichments that public employees have neither worked nor bargained for, over and over, for a decade. And when there isn’t enough money to go around, do they ever tell those of their own generations they will have to give something back? Never. They decide that those in younger generations will have to be worse off, without saying so. So Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg have decided that future hires should have much less generous pensions, and thus much lower total pay overall, a few years after Bloomberg agreed to cut the retirement age for teachers from 62 to 55 and Paterson voted for all those pension enhancements as a member of the state legislature (they generally pass the legislature unanimously). Do they truthfully say “shared sacrifice” means that because those of their generation have shared, future generations will be sacrificed? No, they do not. Thus, they are frauds, as are the news organizations (with their aging readers and viewers) which don’t point that out either. The New York State legislature, of course, is far worse.

At the start of every election season in New York, there is much talk among pols and the press about which major Party candidates the minor Parties (Independence, Conservative, Working Families) will cross-endorse in the few tightly contested races for Congress and State Legislature.

Gatemouth has declared his candidacy for the US Senate and has retained Gary Tilzer to lobby on his behalf.

Gatemouth is suffering from burnout–hey hey my my.

Taxing the rich is a fine idea, given the way the distribution of income has evolved in recent decades. Unfortunately New York has already thought of it, and we not only have the highest state and local taxes as a share of personal income in the country (excluding Alaska and, sometimes, Wyoming where mineral taxes account for large share) but also among the most progressive. That is particularly the case in New York City, where a local income tax, over and above the state and federal income taxes, carries part of the burden that is carried by property taxes elsewhere. The rich, to an ever greater extent than most, already pay more here than they would anywhere else in the country. It is at the federal level where the tax burden has shifted in favor of the rich in recent decades, with the regressive payroll tax increased to “save Social Security” (but the money diverted elsewhere), the progressive income tax reduced, investment income taxed at favorable rates, and loopholes created to allow the wealthy to claim their work income as investment income. The favorable treatment of investment income was supposed to increase savings and investment, but instead the savings rate fell to zero. If suburban and upstate counties want to enact local income taxes to replace part of their property tax burden, that’s fine with me. Otherwise, leave taxing the rich to President-elect Obama, who I’m sure will get around to it sooner or later.

Even before that report was released, politicians started arguing about bridge tolls. And predictably the press has treated bridge tolls as the main story. It isn’t. The main story is the other aspects of the proposal which have united all our politicians against our future, once again. Why has no one questioned putting a permanent tax, on wage income only (not retirement income or investment income), to pay for just five years of ongoing normal replacement of MTA facilities and equipment? Why have there been no articles in the Times, News, Post, Newsday, etc. etc. asking what would happen in 2014, when the bonds issued against that future revenues would have been spent, and the MTA would be right back in the same position despite permanently higher taxes? Doesn’t anyone care that the MTA is in this position today precisely because no one bothered to care about today back when today was tomorrow? Has no one pointed out that New Yorkers will be paying a higher sales tax, forever, just to pay the interest on money that has already been spent, to which they want to add this additional tax? How much deeper into indentured servitude are the generations in charge willing to send younger and future residents of New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation District, New York State and the United States by deferring costs and advancing revenues? Does everyone comfort themselves by telling themselves there is no choice?