Category: News and Opinion

Mitt Romney's new campaign slogan:

In most of the world, those who care about such things are a little bit surprised that Shelly Silver's married adult children are registered to vote from his apartment on Grand Street, but few are really shocked.

By contrast, in the Orthodox world there is profound shock.

One of the dilemmas of writing on Room Eight is whether or not to repeat myself. On one hand, there may be some people who have never actually seen data on comparative public employment, or whose interests or ideology may cause them to try to ignore it. For them, my usual exhaustively explained and sourced “beat them into the dust” (in the words of a former boss) style might make sense. But for anyone who has read this stuff before, the result is boredom. Last year I wrote twelve single typed pages on this data, in four posts. Did anybody read it, after all that effort? Who knows?

So this time, I am going to try to write less, tossing off comments in emulation of the most popular and prolific Room Eight poster. To do so, I’m going to assume that anyone reading my blog has the spreadsheet posted here, printed out and in front of them. If you haven’t already, you should download this and print out the “local output” and “state output” tables, before reading what I have written here. I’ll also assume that there is much I don’t need to say about how New York compares with other places, because I’ve said it over and over again, ad nauseum. And I’ll assume that the reader is willing to assume that if I say something is true, then it is backed by facts, without once again regurgitating exhaustive proof and specific numbers. Rest assured that data is there.

The governments division of the U.S. Census Bureau has released state and local government employment and payroll data for March 2011, and as in the past I’ve compiled it for New York City, the rest of New York State (by subtraction), New Jersey and the United States, along with some related and relevant private sector data, and added 2002 data for comparison. A spreadsheet of related private-sector data is also included. A link to the spreadsheets, and notes on how the data was compiled, come after the jump.

Based on the Census Bureau’s release schedule, I may have 2010 state and local government finance data to show you in time for the state legislature election this November. But this 2011 employment data, that 2010 finance data, and the 2011 education finance data are likely to be the latest available prior to the 2013 New York City Democratic Mayoral primary. And it is this data, and the values and priorities it demonstrates, that the candidates for Mayor ought to be asked about. How much do we pay, compared with other places? What do we spend more than average on, or less, adjusted for everything? For which public services do we employ more people compared with other places, and how is that changing? Let’s see what the data shows.

Apologies for this one being a few days late and a couple bucks short.  

This is part two in a two-part series illustrating why almost everything you know about recent events in Brooklyn politics is wrong. 

This is the first part of a (at least) two-part series on the topic of why almost everything you know about recent events in Brooklyn politics is wrong.  

For almost two years now, I have been writing columns telling you that Mitt Romney will handily lose this upcoming presidential election.  So I am moving beyond that now: it’s a “fait accompli” in my book. Romney is -and has always been- as horrible a candidate as any the republicans could have nominated. There are much better presidential candidates in the Republican Party. Most of the good ones chose not to run this time around.