Category: News and Opinion

In a race between Russ Gallo and Ben Akselrod, I am agnostic.

I do not care which of them can deny more minority religions a place to worship, or deny LGTB persons more rights.

Gate: Dybbuk, be a mensch.

I start this column in New York City. It’s three o’clock on the morning of a public holiday we celebrate in this city: Columbus Day. It’s only fitting that I write this column today since it deals with a simple but profound prediction: Mitt Romney has no chance of winning next month’s presidential race. He will be soundly defeated. This is a general election that has been over long before the primaries started: contrary to all the media hype of it being a close race. 

As promised, this piece documents why the toy balloon known as Dov Hikind’s political power largely consists of hot air.

The fiscal 2010 state and local finance data compilation has been released by the U.S. Census Bureau, and I spent one and one-half days of a weekend putting it into a readily comparable form for local governments in the U.S., New York State, New Jersey, New York City, and (by subtraction) the rest of New York State. You can follow my work step by step in the series of worksheets in the “Local Government Finance 2010” spreadsheet, which can be downloaded from Archive.com here. Look to the left and click on “Excel” to download it. I did the work on my own time because providing comparisons with the national average and other states is something neither the City of New York nor the State of New York, which between them spent $3.3 billion on agencies in the Census Bureau’s “Financial Administration” category, have seen fit to do. In the “Added” worksheet, you can hopefully print the FY 2010 data on two pages. The “FY 2002 and FY 2010” worksheet provides that comparison for those who have good eyes.

How much should people concern themselves with this data, and with the New York State legislators and New York council members who pass the budgets that have decided what the data show? Consider this. In FY 2010, the money New York City local governments (including the Port Authority and New York City Transit) directly spent equaled 20.8% of all of the personal income earned by all New York City residents. Of that amount, the equivalent of 12.8% of the income of city residents was extracted directly from city residents and others spending time here in taxes, fees, fines and other revenues, with the equivalent of 8.0% coming from the federal government and the State of New York (with some of the state money originating with the federal government). The State of New York exercises indirect control over the entire 20.8% of everyone’s income that is spent by the city, and also directly spends the equivalent of 12.8% of the income of state residents. Taken together, New York City’s state and local governments spent the equivalent of about one-third of everything New York City residents earn. On public services and benefits that are, or can be, absolutely essential, but which the city and state and those who work for it have no contractual obligation to provide with any quality.

The time has come, the blogger said, to speak of many things.

In 2006, as part as part of a longer piece, I posted a detailed complaint about the failure of the Republican Party in NYC to provide the voters with general election choices.

The situation no one wants to talk about is being whispered about here and there. Looking for something else I recently came upon this NY Times essay by Kurt Anderson from a few months back. “Why had the revolution dreamed up in the late 1960s mostly been won on the social and cultural fronts — women’s rights, gay rights, black president, ecology, sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll — but lost in the economic realm, with old-school free-market ideas gaining traction all the time? There was a long pause. People shrugged and sighed. I had an epiphany, which I offered, bumming out everybody in the room. What has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late ’60s isn’t contradictory or incongruous. It’s all of a piece. For hippies and bohemians as for businesspeople and investors, extreme individualism has been triumphant. Selfishness won.”

So, do I agree? In part.

Given the failure of Vito Lopez's real political opponents to mount a write-in campaign for a credible candidate, Republican Richy Martinez looked to be the only Republican (other than those who cast a vote in the legislature for same sex marriage, or are running against a member of the Barron family) who was a sure-shot for a Gatemouth endorsement.

But then Martinez said, in regard to Lopez: 

A lesson learned:  “Rope a Dope” is NOT a good debate strategy.