Category: News and Opinion

It is here. For 50 years, powerful organized interests in collusion with New York’s elected officials have, in backroom deals without public discussion, without public disclosure, without any consideration of anyone else, walked off with large chunks of New York’s subsequently diminished future. The cost of these deals has generally been hidden for a year or two, and then described as the inevitable consequence of circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Or “uncontrollable expenses.” For example, at a time when most Americans, and most New Yorkers, have no retirement plan at all other than Social Security, public employee unions, again and again, have cut deals with elected officials for earlier retirement with richer pensions. The result, when the bills come due, has been higher taxes, diminished public services, diminished public benefits, and lower pay and benefits for future public employees. That is one of the reason we pay so much in taxes for police, yet starting police officers get $25,000 per year. The most recent deal would allow New York City’s teachers to work five fewer years, retire, and thus get paid to do nothing for five additional years. It has been sent to Governor Spitzer for his signature, after passing the legislature virtually overnight with virtually no dissent, just as everything like it passes. This, and not Joe Bruno’s helicopter rides, is the real moral issue, and the measure of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s values.

Recently I sent a note to my editors (Ben Smith and Gur Tsabar) in which I requested a sense of their vision for this site. You see I have observed that Room Eight isn’t attracting new blood or young blood. Out of the original writers in this colony many have left or stopped being productive. Plus, the site sometimes gets bogged down in crappy threads initiated by mischievous commenters. There is a perception out there that this site has lost some of its luster. Also, Ben Smith has lost his focus (understandably so; given his tremendous work for “Politico”, on the current presidential primary campaign); Room Eight isn’t as high on his priority-list as it was before. All this hurts this site.

Long-time readers of my posts may recall this comparison I made a year ago, using the TurboTax computer program, between the federal, state and local taxes owed by two hypothetical Brooklyn couples with the exact same $75,000 middle-class income — one a couple of retired senior citizen homeowners, the other a working couple crammed into a small apartment. I found that the young couple would pay three times as much in taxes, and that while the seniors paid far less in federal taxes, because retirement income is exempt from the payroll tax, the disparity in New York’s state and local taxes was even greater, because retirement income is not subject to state and local income taxes at all. Well, it’s tax time again, and I’ve once again used the Turbo Tax program to do my taxes and theirs. This year I bumped the income of the two couples — Mr. and Mrs. Senior Voter, and Mr. Young and Ms. Younger Hopeful — up to $100,000 to see what changes. The answer is not much. The Young Hopefuls continue to be taxed heavily as if they were rich, while the Senior Voters continue to pay little as if they were needy, despite the exact same income. Adding a child to the Young Hopefuls, and child care costs and child tax benefits, helps little. If Ms. Hopeful were to stay home with the child, the young couple would still pay more in taxes than the older couple, despite lower income.

If you don’t want public services to collapse and taxes to soar, you’d better hope yesterday was an unusual day, and January was an unusual month. According “Rates on $100 million of bonds sold by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with bidding run by Goldman, soared to 20 percent yesterday from 4.3 percent a week ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…New York state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority also had failures, officials said.” Did you hear that? The MTA tried to sell bonds to finance it’s operations, and no one would buy them. All this pontificating about the MTA surplus, and the reality is the agency is going deeper and deeper into debt, but now perhaps it can’t.

Barack Obama’s broom has been busy lately. It has been sweeping caucuses and cleaning up primaries. It hasn’t surprised me one bit, as I have been telling you guys for a while now: you are watching history unfold, folks. Okay: so I like to rub the noses of my detractors into the groundings of my political predictions come true; live with it; get over it.

Last week I told you guys that Obama could sweep the seven upcoming races (including Maine-which everyone and his brother thought Billary would win). I said the worst he could do was win five of seven. I also said that Billary’s best shot for an upset was in Maryland; well take Maryland off the table now. I didn’t even consider The Virgin islands worthy of discussion, since there were only three delegates at stake: but then that was already in the Obama win column. Tonight, I expect Barack Obama’s broom to sweep through the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland. Billary will be cleaning up late tonight folks. Start calling her the “clean-up woman”; she will be doing a lot of cleaning up after Obama keeps winning. By tonight he would have won about two dozen caucuses and primaries; this is rally impressive folks: it is time to admit that you Clintonistas.

Last December, I posted about the theory of the two electorates.

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/jerry_skurnik/the_theory_of_the_two_electorates.html

A quick summary of the theory is that a small minority of voters know a lot about issues and politics but that the vast majority of voters know very little about the subject until right before they vote.

I just wanted to get in this short emergency piece on the great Super-Tuesday post-election analysis, because “spin” is exactly that: “spin”. LOL. All through the night, many of you must have heard the spinmeisters weaving their deceptive tales about who won Super Tuesday, but what is the objective reality? Where is the truth? And when do you separate truth from spin?

In yesterday’s contests Barack Obama won thirteen states; Hillary Clinton won eight. The only state still outstanding at this point is New Mexico, and Obama is slightly ahead in the count, plus he won the exit polls. That will give him fourteen when they finish counting this morning, once the trends hold up. As of today Barack Obama has won more primaries or caucuses than HRC, up to this point in the contest. It is worst if you subtract Florida and Michigan from her win column. Remember these two states were places that the candidates agreed not to contest- but Hillary violated the agreement. She went as far as having her name placed on the Michigan ballot (while he didn’t); how crass and unethical. Now her people are threatening to go to court, in order to seat these delegates, which the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – in agreement with all the candidates- agreed not to count.

I didn’t want to do a pre-Super Tuesday column; I really didn’t. I am so tired of all the bullshit on these blogs, coming from anonymous attackers not wanting intelligent discourse- but just wanting to get their rocks off (and aimed at me of course)- that I thought about taking a pass. However, I have had so many requests for such a column, that I couldn’t wait till next week (to do my now deliberate: one a week column); so here I am; a few days early.

One hundred and ninety three years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte of France fought a battle against the British, and lost at Waterloo; this signaled the beginning of the end of Napoleon’s colorful reign. On Super Tuesday, Bill and Hillary Clinton will meet their Waterloo, when they go into political battle with Barack Hussein Obama in about two dozen varied states. At the end of the night, it will be clear to near everyone (bar the die-hard Clinton-fanatics) that the Clinton dynasty is coming to an end.

Super Tuesday approaches in this ridiculously front-loaded Presidential campaign. Since I’m not with the bastards or the other bastards, I don’t have a horse in this race, and here on Room Eight I try to refrain from making personal judgments about people I know nothing about. For those of you pondering decisions, however, there is something I’d like to point out. The President is just one actor in the federal government, since the Congress — which also has an election that no one is talking about — is equally important. The federal government is just part of the government in the United States; as I explained last August, it controls much of the money but, aside from national defense and the Post Office, actually does very little of the work. The government is just one part of American society, arguably less important than families or businesses and other private organizations. And the United States has problems, both internally and with the rest of the world, that are affecting government, business, other organizations and families alike.

The President, however, isn’t just the CEO of the federal government, he is the leader of and, for other countries, the symbol of the United States. His or her ability to improve the United States and the world rests not only on their ability to have the federal government force people to do things, but their ability to influence people to do things, or not do things, on their own, through their arguments and personal example. Of the remaining candidates, which one is capable of exercising that kind of leadership in your life, in a direction you believe to be the right one?

The history of the USA is littered with victims; people who have been victimized for one reason or another, from some time period to another. Amongst these groups you could find Native Indians; indentured servants, negroes and other slaves; some ethnic minorities; African Americans in the post-civil war era (especially males); members of a few nationalistic groups – which in the short term suffered discrimination, scorn and the like; and American women in general-women of all races, ethnicities, nationalities and religions.

The one group that will find it difficult to make a comprehensive case for victimization here, is Caucasian males; and despite there being a few individuals from this group, who may be successful in making such a case; for the most part: white males have overwhelmingly run the show since the pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock. They have always held power in their hands; power that dominated the social, economic, political, religious, military and other institutions of the country; power that has dominated the every fabric of what is called: “Americana”.