Category: News and Opinion

In Wednesday’s NY Post, Fred Dicker has a front page story charging Governor Spitzer with refusing to fund projects in the district of Assembly Republican Leader Jim Tedisco.

Gov. Spitzer yesterday played vicious hardball with his chief opponent in the battle over driver's licenses for illegal aliens – canceling $300,000 in state-funded health-care and education projects in Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco's district, The Post has learned. "It's governance by vengeance. He doesn't care who he hurts," a furious Tedisco (R-Schenectady) told The Post. "You disagree with him and he tries to steamroller you," said Tedisco, a Republican.

My question to Fred and others is how this is different from what Fred reported on Monday, without a hint of criticism – Joe Bruno cut off cell phone service to Democratic Senators and stopped construction on a Democratic staffer’s office because the Dems made Joe angry?

The New York City Board of Elections has certified the results of last month’s Primary elections.

Here are the results (with a little commentary).

BROOKLYN

The only contests n Brooklyn were Democratic Primaries for judicial posts. These are the only contests that received anything close to significant media coverage.

Opponents of congestion pricing, based in Queens, released a report with an alternative to the proposal last week. Proponents of congestion pricing, who would probably otherwise support many the alternative’s ideas, immediately blasted it for being what it probably is – a red herring designed to ensure that nothing happens, existing privileges are maintained, and problems are not solved, but the public is confused about who is to blame and thus just shrugs its shoulders. The typical Albany win over the public, in other words. Still, there is enough of interest in the proposal that it deserves a thoughtful review, and such a review finds that it is essentially an extension of current policies, and has the same hole as those policies. The opponents’ proposal, more over, gores even more oxen that congestion pricing, and may thus be designed to stir up even more opposition. Still, it is worth considering as the basis for a more complete alternative, if only to test the opponent’s sincerity. Filling that hole, however, could make the proposal as viable as congestion pricing, if not as flexible.

Monday’s New York Post reported on some of the fallout over the latest alleged “dirty trick” by Governor Spitzer and some Senate Democrats.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, quietly retaliated against Smith late last week by canceling service on six of the cellphones used by his top aides.

They also halted a construction project designed to enlarge the office of his press secretary, Curtis Taylor.

"I think they'll get the message that trying to damage Sen. Bruno isn't a smart thing to do," said a Senate source.

As part of the latest round of fare increases, the MTA is introducing two new, and good, ideas: peak period pricing with off-peak discounts, and small regular fare increases instead of years of “save the fare” grandstanding with deferred maintenance followed by a whopper. Those who have read my prior posts here know that I am in favor of both, but would go further, as described below. I had considered writing in with my comments to the MTA website, even actually showing up at a public hearing. But I decided instead to put my comments here, so others can respond as well.

If anybody reading this is interested or knows someone interested in voting for or against Hillary, Rudy, Obama, Edwards, Romney, McCain or any of the Presidential candidates in the February Primary, Friday October 12 may be the last chance to qualify to do so.

Only enrolled Democrats will be eligible to vote in the Democratic Primary and only enrolled Republicans can vote in the GOP Primary.

So for any voter not presently enrolled, Friday is the absolute last day to switch and become a Democrat or Republican.

You can go the NYC Board of Elections website for details on how to switch.

The U.S. Census Bureau released state and local government public employee pension data for 2006 last month. I’ll discuss this information next May, when more detailed information is released along with all public finance data for the year. Nonetheless, the data provides a few interesting tidbits. Benefit payments equaled 6.6% of the assets of New York City’s public employee pension systems in 2006, more than for the New York State pension systems, which include New York State government and local governments outside the city, at 4.5%, or the national average for state and local pension systems, at 5.2%. Employees accounted for just 7.3% of all contributions to New York City’s pension systems, even though in most titles new NYC employees are required to kick in 5.85% of their pay, because those hired in prior generations (and those in certain titles such as police and fire) are not paying in at all. The national average is 20.6% and the figure for the New York State pension systems is 4.5%. And New York City’s pension fund earnings equaled just 7.5% of its investment holdings in 2006, compared with a national average of 10.3% and 12.0% for the New York State systems. Despite last year’s return, however, New York City’s investment choices, if they didn’t change and if the city isn’t taxed to make up for losses by the rest of the state, may leave us better off in 2007.

From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, New York City could be characterized as the “city that doesn’t work.” Reversing a historic pattern that had prevailed until that time, the share of NYC adults employed, or even in the labor force (working or looking for work), was well below the national average. A high share of the city’s population was on public assistance. And, New York City reputedly had a large share of its workforce employed by the government. The latter point was always an exaggeration – if New York’s tax dollars went anywhere to a greater extent that elsewhere, they went to those retired from public service not those actively providing public services, and to the large, government-funded “non-profit” health and social service sector. Recent data from the 2006 American Community Survey (ACS – see attached spreadsheets), however, show that New York’s status as a city of non-workers may be disappearing as a “welfare generation” passes on. And dependence on government and government-funded employment is, in fact, a characteristic of the suburbs and Upstate New York, not New York City.

What does it say about Governor Spitzer and his team that the best defenses of his actions on the issue of driver licenses & “troopergate” were in newspapers – and not articulated by them.?

I refer to Bill Hammond in the Daily News regarding the licenses.

Here is the highlight of Hammond’s defense, which points to facts that I have no heard Spitzer or his aides state –

DMV offices will not be handing out licenses willy-nilly to anyone who shows up with a Mexican or Saudi Arabian birth certificate. People who lack a Social Security number will have to produce, at a minimum, a valid, up-to-date passport with photo – which the DMV will check for authenticity with special scanning machines. They must also provide backup documentation of their ID and prove they live in New York. And Spitzer is ordering the DMV to use photo-comparison software to make sure one person cannot get more than one license.

The first candidate for whom I ever voted in a presidential primary was a member of the Church of Latter Days Saints of Jesus Christ (LDS, aka the Mormons); although he had but one eye, I’m not sure I’ve ever found anyone since whose vision so impressed me. His name was Morris Udall, he was a congressman from Arizona, and his impact on environmental legislation alone has changed for the better the lives of every American. As Doonesbury’s Jimmy Thudpucker said at the time “He might be obscure, this man with a cure, an other, but brother, he’s pure.”

There are many reasons to snicker at Mitt Romney, and I join with all those on the right, left and center who chose to cast an amused eye (or even two) on his empty suit (two sizes smaller than the one unoccupied by his rival, Fred Thompson); those clothes truly have no emperor. But, when asked to join my enemies on the religious right, or my friends on the secular left, in looking askance at him because of the religion with which he chooses to affiliate, I am somewhat less than comfortable.