Since I wrote part one of this column, I have had many phone calls and e-mails about it. It seems that Lou Fidler does have many friends in the black-community (not that I didn’t know this); and all those who contacted me assured me that Lew Fidler is not behind the candidacy of Harry Schiffman (40th council district/ special election/February 20th, 2007). So Lew, I will personally grant you the benefit of the doubt, even though some of my more militant political acquaintances (who just happen to be black/lol), seem to want to dig further into this Schiffman candidacy. To me however, let’s let sleeping dogs lie. Lew Fidler said that he is not behind it and I believe him.
Category: News and Opinion
Give Kalikow, Lapp and Reuter a Break
|Katherine N. Lapp has left her job as head of the MTA, Peter Kalikow will soon depart as head of the MTA Board, and Larry Reuter is moving on as head of New York City Transit. Lots of New Yorkers are bound to say good riddance, but mass transit is something I happen to know a good deal about, and I know better. The three are blamed for rising fares, service cuts, a three-day strike, and an upcoming fiscal crisis, because they happened to be around when the bills for past shortsighted decisions came due. Meanwhile, the people who made those decisions, and those who benefited from them, fail to take responsibility for their actions. As long as the public lacks the mental ability to connect problems in the present with decisions made in the past, the political class will always be tempted to sell out the future for the present. It isn’t these “villains” I blame for the ongoing financial problems at the MTA in the face of record ridership. It is past “heroes” who are actually to blame, some of whom are running for President.
An Affordable Housing Tale
|In my current employment as a surveyor and describer of all things real estate across the country, I happened upon a news item which has induced me to renew my complaints against “affordable housing.” As long time readers here may recall, I believe that the government should provide services and benefits for everyone, or at least for the less well off, while “affordable housing” is necessarily made available to the fortunate few, often those with connections. There are urban legends, for example, that those in certain unions and political clubs were tipped off in advance when the lists of subsidized Mitchell-Lama apartments came open, showed up at the right time, and snatched up all the units. Those rental apartments are now the subject of political controversy, as buildings constructed in the late 1970s gain the right to exit the program – and rent stabilization – as their subsidies expire. But there was another aspect of Mitchell Lama, limited equity coops, under which apartment buyers agree to resell at lower prices in exchange for tax breaks. These coops are also gaining the right to exit the program, and sell for more, but the windfall in this case would accrue to individual apartment owners, not landlords. Let the morality tale begin!
Cindy Sheehan’s Demands
|On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders had their Capitol news conference disrupted by a group of anti-war activists led by Cindy Sheehan.
According to press accounts, Sheehan said "We put them back in power," she said of the Democrats. Passing out fliers calling for defunding the Iraq war, Sheehan shouted: "These are our demands. And they're not requests — they're demands."
Day Three: Not Much Yet
|The Governor's State of the State address didn't get down to the nitty gritty, and thus far I'm disappointed. We'll see what the budget brings. It is worth noting, however, that little more than half of NYC public school students graduate from high school in four years, nearly 20 percent of city residents live in poverty, and an unusually large share of NYC adults are not in the labor force. None of this was identified as a problem for the state. The diminished circumstances of Upstate New York, meanwhile, was identified as a problem in need of assistance. In the hard choices department, what was identified was the need to cut Medicaid spending, much of which takes place in NYC. Even if in the next decade the city becomes richer and the rest of the state poorer (it could very well happen that way), city residents should not forget the attitude of the rest of the state when we were poor. We weren’t “one state” then. We should be “one state” now, but the rest of the state should not be allowed to forget 40 years of hostility. Where would the NYC schools be today if the education bond act had passed in the mid-1990s, when the rest of the state voted it down because it would have benefited the city? That bond issue was in exchange for STAR, which diverts school funding away from the city to this day.
Do the Clarkes (Yvette and her mother Una) owe Nick Perry anything?
|One thing about blogging that makes it attractive to many is the fact that you can sound off anonymously in the threads and not be called into account. There is no one to hold you responsible when the things you predict turn out to be “duds”; no one will castigate you when some of the outrageous things you claim are glaringly refuted. That’s unfortunate, but it’s the reality of the “blogosphere”. That’s why I use my name when I write: I want to be held responsible for what I say or predict. It’s the only honest and serious way to do this; it’s also the brave way to do this. To me, it’s also the right way to do it.
Paying a Non-Existent Tax
|The last paychecks of the year are in, and looking at the withholding, it appears a non-existent tax absorbed more than 3 percent of our income. The NYC local income tax. How is that tax non-existent? It is non-existent politically, when people talk about who is and who is not overtaxed, and complain about their property taxes. Last time the Independent Budget Office looked, however, the total tax burden was higher for NYC residents than for residents of the rest of the state.
We’re Either All In It Together or We Are Not
|We're either all in it together or we are not. That's the feeling I had as I listened to Governor Spitzer's soaring rhetoric about being "one state." For some time, as far as our state government has been concerned, whenever some people, groups, or places have had a need, we've all been in it together. And whenever other people, groups or places have had a need, they have been told to take more responsibility for themselves. The inequities have been generational, regional, and in some cases simply insiders vs. outsiders. The optimist in me wants to take Spitzer's words as a sign of future fairness, and accountability for those with better deals. The cynic see it as a call for the losers to stop pressing their claims, and accept plans that could perhaps make them a little better off — and the winners better off as well.
2 Job Applications From Pollster Frank Luntz
|When 81 percent of Americans say they'd be willing to consider voting for an independent candidate for president, you have the makings of a political revolution. Okay, the rhetoric may be a bit overheated, but the American electorate is hot, angry and now, for the first time, afraid. We were always sure the future would be better than the past, but no longer. The national mood is not just anti-incumbent, and it is not just anti-Republican. Thanks to a whole lot of federal failures – Katrina, illegal immigration, wasteful spending, perceptions of economic stagnation and political corruption – we have become anti-Washington. A credible presidential independent will be someone who is not tied to the Washington political establishment but can point to a record of results. He (or she) will say "no" to the lobbyists and special interests but still have the financial means to run a serious national campaign. Such a candidate will attract considerable attention – and perhaps some serious votes. There's only one person in America who fits the bill: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Common Sense in Remission
|An article in today’s Village Voice contained this startling passage:
“Blindness is something in which Paterson has an intensely personal stake. The 51-year-old State Senator is legally blind…but his interest in the issue stands out for other reasons. Paterson represents Upper Manhattan, including Harlem, an area that includes some of the city's poorest areas…There are many with visual handicaps in Paterson’s district, but these diseases don't strike residents in the area any more often than those in the rest of the city, health studies show. The biggest local health problem, according to a 2006 survey by the city's department of health, is asthma: Hospitalization rates for asthma attacks suffered by both children and adults in the area are double that of the rest of Manhattan, as well as the city as a whole. Infant mortality rates are also higher than the city average, the study found.”