Category: News and Opinion

My interaction with politicos has been very limited over the years, probably to our mutual benefit. I can count the times I have been the same room with an elected official on two hands, and the times I have actually spoken with one on one hand. But about four and a half years ago, I found myself in the back of a room next to Alan Hevesi, who was then running for New York State Comptroller, and I asked him for something. Handing over a sample, I asked if he, as Comptroller, would compile and publish the kind of comparative state and local revenue, expenditure, employment and payroll data that I have been producing privately over the years (see here and here). I had previously tried to convince some of his future underlings to do the work, but had gotten nowhere, which is no surprise given my own history as a government underling and inability to accomplish anything. But here I was taking to the future top guy. The reason I wanted the Office of the State Comptroller to compile and publish the information isn’t that I didn’t feel like doing it myself. For reasons I’ll explain after the jump, that office is in a position to provide more detailed and timely data than I am. Well, despite some positive noises at the time, I never did get my data.

You might have read this article in the Times which reports on how cities around the country are desperately trying to attract the young, particularly the educated young. The reason: with the nation's aging demographics, we are entering an era of skilled labor shortage, and whoever gets the educated young gets jobs, income, and economic activity.

I have also heard this issue raised in Upstate New York, but here the concern about losing the young isn't about jobs and business, it is about "the tax base." In New York, you see, we have the richest senior benefits anywhere, but prefer to exempt seniors from taxes, so someone has to be available to pay relatively more and get relatively less.

After running fourth in a field of four in a race for Congress with only 19% of the vote (despite having the support of, and same last name as, an incumbent Congressman with nearly a quarter century of service), Chris Owens decided to snatch dignity from the jaws of defeat by claiming credit (with some credibility) for the defeat of white candidate David Yassky. Having been handed a bunch of lemons, Owens decided to claim he was manufacturing lemonade, and it’s hard to disagree that this was better than squeezing sour grapes, even if it's still a matter of empty calories. So, it seemed petulant at that juncture to point out that, at the time Owens decided to stay in the race, it was far from apparent that his presence wouldn’t cost a stronger black candidate victory.

If you read my screed on tax breaks here, you can guess my position on the 421a program, which exempts new condos and apartment buildings from property taxes for years and years. Get rid of it.

The developer captures that benefit from the apartment buyer by charging more, or from the renter by renting for the same amount and pocketing the savings. The development site owner then captures it from the developer, by also charging more, leaving housing no more affordable, development no more profitable, and new housing no more likely. If the tax breaks are exchanged for new units dedicated to a few people earning $35,000 or less, then the taxes are instead collected from others equally less well off, or diverted from services such as schools.

Now that Al Sharpton has once again let it be known that he's thinking of running for President, allow me to remind everybody of some facts.

These facts, I'm sure, will be ignored by NY1, which has already I presume scheduled their usual weekly series of interviews with Rev. Al where they will treat him with a straight face like he really is a serious candidate.

Here are the facts.

Two years ago when Al claimed to be running for President,, Sharpton lost the black majority District of Columbia primary to Howard Dean, finished 3rd with less than 10% in South Carolina where Blacks were 50% of the turnout and lost badly to “soul brother” John Kerry in both of Central Brooklyn’s Congressional districts.

"Rev. Al Mulls White House bid" – Daily News, 11/23/06.

Gatemouth's Homepage was updated on 11/23/06; for more fun and laughter, visit here.

While the CFE decision provided one last chance for NYC conservatives to show they aren’t hypocrites (one they apparently will not take), it also provides one last chance for NYC Democrats to show they care as much about the quality of life of NYC residents as they do about the perpetuation of their own power and perks, and those of their organized supporters. Such Democrats might want to tax everyone more and spend more on everyone. But faced with opposition from elsewhere, they have agreed to tax New York City more and spend more elsewhere, nowhere more so than in education. At least, in their view, overall education spending is higher than it would otherwise be – number one in the nation as a share of personal income, despite low spending in the city. In general, those that matter are unaffected by the negative consequences, making those consequences seem remote and unimportant. That is the deal we have, the deal the Court has held to be constitutionally wrong but also has held that it cannot or will not change.

There are some things on which you can't put a price tag. It is too bad the future of our children ain't one of them.

Back on March 23, 2006, I posted my first piece on "Room 8", and said, in part:

"today's decision by the Appellate Division, 1st Department, in the CFE case, together with the impending attempts to convert Roe v. Wade into an empty shell, highlight the problems with "merit selection". Those who control the Executive Branch determine who has the "merit". The First Department's appointed Appellate Division largely consists of upstate Republican hacks imported from the vicintiy of the Cheese Museum. In many ways, the byproducts (AKA our local judicial bench) produced by our own local political culture (which is, at least, more liberal and more racially diverse) look far better in comparison."

Well folks, you got you wanted in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision. Not only is the minimum only $2 billion more (in 2004 dollars) for NYC schools, but also the state is free to cut school aid to the city, and increase it to the rest of the state, as in 1995-96, and the courts will do nothing about it other than tut tut 13 years later. With the decision in and the election over, there is one last chance for you (and you know who you are) to show you aren't hypocrites.

Use the Zarb Commission estimates of the lower cost of living in Upstate New York, and the additional needs of low income students, to esimate what school districts in the rest of the state should be spending. And then demand that spending in the rest of the state be cut, and that NYC taxpayers no longer have to pay excess state taxes for wasteful spending elsewhere.

Saturday's New Yost Post editorial quoting Mayor Bloomberg, in defending his decision to approve the City Council raises, as saying –

"All legislative bodies at the federal, state and city levels have a similar situation [with lulus]. It is the ways that the head of the legislative body . . . [controls] the members, pulling them together, getting them to vote as a bloc so you don't have chaos."

One problem.

That's just not true.

Congress does not give extra pay to Committee Chairs. And neither do the legislatures of the 2 biggest states – California & Texas. I didn't check the other 47 states or the thousands of other City Councils but somehow I doubt that Idaho or Duluth are paying lulus to Committee chairs.