Category: News and Opinion

According to a Chinese proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” It turns out that for decades U.S. food aid policies have been based on giving poor countries that fish, or rather giving them food produced in the United States and shipped abroad, because the program has been as much a subsidy for grain producers and shipping companies as an act of charity. A few years ago the Bush Administration, which I agree with about 15% of the time, proposed using some of America’s food aid money to buy food in the countries where the aid was distributed. If American food was the cheapest, then the private sector would get it there, but otherwise American food aid would support, rather than displace, a network of local farmers and food businesses, providing them with the income to recover and develop. It was and is a good idea.

This policy, however, was blocked in Congress for years by an “iron triangle” of U.S. agribusiness interests, shipping interests, and the food aid non-profits that distribute the assistance. And now, in a stunning reversal the The Economist magazine recently called “the end of cheap food,” events have overtaken that debate, putting countries with weakened food production and distribution networks at risk of severe and unmitigated famine for the first time in 30 years.

A prior generation of workers preserved rich pensions for itself, while limiting my generation and those after to 401Ks, with the company at first contributing to them, and then stopping. And, I have written elsewhere, younger generations will not get health insurance either. The IRS, in order for health insurance to be excluded from taxable income, requires all company employees to receive it. But employers and employees with seniority have gotten around that by hiring the young as “freelancers” and “contractors,” a category that includes a growing share of the workforce. Now, reported the New York Times, “scores of workers from MTV Networks walked off the job yesterday afternoon, filling the sidewalk outside the headquarters of its corporate parent, Viacom, to protest recent changes in benefits. The walkout highlighted the concerns of a category of workers who are sometimes called permalancers: permanent freelancers who work like full-time employees but do not receive the same benefits.” Hey kids, you might want to turn your attention to public policy. Viacom is a loving parent compared with the federal, state and local governments.

Freelancers are paying two local income taxes (including the Unincorporated Business Tax) while the retired are exempted from both state and local income taxes in New York. The young and workign poor are not receiving health insurance, but their taxes pay for those who receive it from the public sector (seniors, public employees) and offset the taxes lost to the health insurance tax exemption.  And that is just two examples of the growing generational inequities.  Worse for today’s young than for me, undoubtedly worse for my kids than for today’s young, if something isn’t done.  Compared with many of the self employed, these college-educated media workers are in fact well off. 

I don’t profess to know the man or woman who invented the phrase: “the large elephant sitting at the back of the room”; even though I believe that whoever did it is a member of my generation. You see, I never saw the term used in any of the many old English Literature books I have studied. I do think that the inventor of this term deserves the Nobel Prize for English; the term is that good. It refers to the tacit presence of something or someone that causes pain, displeasure, angst, discomfort and/or such, to some, most, or all of those present (wherever). So; taking my cue from the inventor (s), I am now suggesting a spin-off term: the ten zillion ton gorilla sitting at the back of the room. In this case: I am referring to “race”.

I might be a minority of one here but I don’t believe that Tim Russert “grilled” Rudy on Meet the Press. I think that Russert missed giving Rudy the tough follow-up questions that could have really put Rudy on the spot.

For example, Russert asked Rudy a few tough questions about one of foreign policy advisors Norman Podhoretz including this exchange –

MR. RUSSERT: Podhoretz also wrote this, this week. “I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations.” Do you think the intelligence community is intentionally putting this information out?

What do I want Eliot Spitzer to do in this state budget? First of all, I want him to tell the truth. In the past, whenever the budget was tight, the City and State of New York have cut spending in categories and places where it is not high, to continue increasing spending in categories and places where it is high. I want the Governor to publicly identify the winners, and freeze or reduce their funding, and publicly identify the losers, letting them know they have been sacrificed. Let the over-funded sacrifice this time. In the past, tax rates have been increased to raise revenues. I want the Governor to keep his pledge on taxes with regard to rates and only raise revenues, if required, by cutting back exemptions, deductions and preferences. And I want him to tell those paying more who is paying less. In the past, the State and City of New York have always sacrificed the future when confronted with difficult choices in the present. I want the Governor to tell people exactly what those decisions, on debts and pensions, has cost them, and to avoid additional debts and one shots, no matter how difficult that will make the next year or two.

This column is ironic in some ways, given that my last “Vines” column dealt with Brooklyn political activist/operative Taharka Robinson, in quite a positive way; here I am dealing with his mother (New York State Assemblywoman: Annette Robinson of Brooklyn’s 56^th AD) but it isn’t positive at all. After I wrote that she was going to resign- which would then create an opportunity for her son to become the next assembly member of that district- I got a few calls on the matter. It appears that I had it partially wrong.

Last week, I was informed by very reliable sources from the New York State Legislature, that it was true that Annette Robinson would soon be leaving that body; but I was also informed that she intends to run for Brooklyn’s 36^th city council district in 2009. Now many of you readers will ask: so what? Well let me tell you what: she will be cynically trying to get around the term limits laws and violate the spirit of the term limits referendum (again).

Every time a bull stock market puffs up the pension funds, the State of New York passes more sweeteners for those cashing in and moving out, but every time a bear market causes pension cost to soar, state-appointed arbitrators and control boards cut pay and benefits for hires while leaving those with seniority untouched. Because the sweeteners and the lower pay for new hires occur at different times, no one says the policy is to enrich one generation of workers at the expense of another. But that is what the policy is. Whenever the economy is flush, money is borrowed to allow more of it to flow to politically powerful priorities on which New York City and State spending is already above average. And when “uncontrollable” spending such as interest on debts subsequently soars, other public services such as parks, libraries, and the Administration of Children’s services are first in line for the axe. Because the spending increases and cuts occur at different times, no one says New York City and New York State policy is to spend more where we already spend more and less where we already spend less. But it is. Similarly, every time a hot economy swells New York City and New York State tax revenues, our elected officials curry favor with politically active discrete groups by handing out tax breaks.

And when the economy cools and tax revenues drop, tax rates are increased, nailing those who didn’t benefit from the breaks, or benefited less than others. Again, because the tax breaks and rate increases occur a few years apart, no one says New York’s policy is to impose higher and higher tax rates on a narrower and narrower tax base. But it is.

Say what you want about our mayor and his modus operandi but he has gotten a few things right over his tenure. I am not a big fan of his but I don’t dislike him either. He was absolutely correct with his ban on cigarettes in certain public establishments; taking the flack in order to get that policy into law. He was correct in putting public education on the front burner; even though I feel that his successes in this area were somewhat exaggerated: but you can’t deny that he has genuinely tried to deal with the issue. I think that in principle he was correct to suggest some type of congestion pricing formula for Manhattan’s traffic congestion problem; hopefully the details would be worked out before pigs grow wings. His positions on the issues surrounding illegal firearms (guns, gun shows, gun sales, etc.) are sensible and timely; and there are other things I could commend him on. Of course there are also many others that I could critique him on; like his police department that’s totally out of control, and the fact that big developers have surely enjoyed his tenure in profitable ways; but that’s not the issue here. You can always view my column in the archives (where I called him a leprechaun), to get a better sense of how I felt about him just a year ago.

There is no more hypocritical whine than older New York State residents complaining that their children find it necessary to move away to find a decent life for themselves. It is hypocritical because while providing the nation’s richest Medicaid services for senior citizens, and excluding retirement income from state (and in New York City local) income taxes, New York has made decision after decision for nearly 20 years to favor those cashing in and moving out at the expense of the state’s future, which is now the present. In general, Republicans sell out the future with debts, caused by tax breaks and rich government contracts for business. Democrats do it with pension enhancements for those with seniority and already retired, passed every time a stock market boom swells pension fund coffers, followed by lower wages and benefits for new hires, agreed to by the Democrats’ union allies every time high pension costs leave the government broke. Now that the bills are starting to come due, there is a bit of unease in Albany, as our “leaders” look around for someone to blame. But with every deal passing the state legislature 212 to 0 they are all to blame. So are the older generations that have gratefully accepted this largesse without questioning who would pay how much. It is those deals that should be undone, and those generations who should pay first, if a recession and fiscal crisis requires sacrifice. To do otherwise would mean that Spitzer and Francis are merely continuing the practices of the now-despised Pataki to pump up the current Governor’s short-term popularity. In the end, Spitzer would be despised as well.

Newsday has reported that Governor Eliot Spitzer and budget director Paul Francis are “engaging the public as we determine our priorities for how to best use the state's limited financial resources, while minimizing the burden on taxpayers and keeping our business climate competitive.” If by “the public” they mean those with the greatest sense of entitlement and the most hooks into the state legislature, then all they have to do is choose the same victims to pay more or get less as in the early to mid-1990s and early 2000s. That is the “humble” thing to do, since it is the path of least resistance in the state legislature, and the path least likely to generate reputation-tainting opposition advertisements. If that is the path they choose, however, the Spitzer Administration will have failed the people of this state to an unimaginable extent. My suggestion, if they wish to “engage” with it, is to do the opposite. Reduce spending in categories and places where it is high, not where it is low. Raise revenues by eliminating tax breaks, even popular ones, rather than raising rates. And stop destroying the common future in order to curry favor with those with the greatest sense of entitlement in the present. For health care and aid to local governments, the details are below. And they assume a much more difficult fiscal environment than has been admitted thus far.