You may have heard that today the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announced, based on the monthly survey of business establishments, that U.S. payroll employment fell by just under 600,000 from December to January. That is the worst month since 1974, I read.  What you may not have heard, however, is that based on the monthly survey of households, BLS also reported the number of employed residents of the United States fell by 1.24 million, or more than twice as much. Double. More than 1.2 million in one month.  Those who consistently read my posts, including this recent one, know how the difference may be explained: the household survey includes the self-employed, people who own their own businesses, freelancers, and independent contractors.

It's hard to get motivated to write about the city budget, given that it's too late to do anything about most of the things that have bothered me for so long. The vested interests are vested, powerful and insatiable, and its time to give up on public services for anyone else in the future, or even the basic needs of the less well off, even though this will still be a relatively rich country when it is through getting poorer. It's also hard to say something worth saying, given that what is out there as a proposal may bear little resemblance to what actually occurs from July 2009 to June 2010, and is misleading about even what is expected at this point. So rather than spend time to write a long analysis few people will read or care about anyway, I'm going to make just one point. As predicted and oh-so-predictable, the Mayor's proposal under-funds the massively costly pension benefits the powerful have promised to themselves, deferring while increasing their cost until after his re-election. Just as is happening elsewhere in the country. Are there any philosophers or theologians out there who can assure me that people actually have free will?

Most of us who have been involved in New York’s politics for a while now, know that C. Virginia Fields has paid a lifetime of dues in politics and community development. She is -amongst many things- a social worker with a Master’s degree in sociology or social work. She cut her teeth in the civil rights struggles of the nineteen-fifties and sixties. She was born in the South; one time she was even arrested (and locked up) with Dr. Martin Luther King for participating in a sit-in. She was only sixteen years old then. She took her young life into her hands: talk about sacrifice and bravery. 

“Blue State MODERATE [emphasis added] Michael Steele beat four MORE HARDLINE [emphasis added] GOP candidates to become the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee."—NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 1/31/09

FROM THE MARYLAND DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S “MARYLAND LT. GOVERNOR MICHAEL STEELE RESEARCH BOOK”: While speaking to the Baltimore Jewish Council, Michael Steele compared doctors conducting stem cell research to Nazis performing human experiments during the Holocaust: “You of all folks know what happens when people decide to experiment on human beings, when they want to take your life and use it as a tool.” [Associated Press, 2/10/06]

Back when I was at City Planning, when the first of several failed plans for Governor’s Island was being framed, there is one nightmare I hoped would be avoided. That at the urging of groups such as the Municipal Arts Society, the island would be parkland alone, and would not have revenues to support its maintenance. And therefore it would drain the budget of the NYC Parks Department, the most under-funded service (relative to average spending) in the New York City. Wealthier New Yorkers would continue to have decent park and recreation facilities, because they would pay for them themselves, in fees and “donations.” But poor and working class New Yorkers, who (unlike suburbanites with their private yards) rely on public parks for leisure and exercise, would lose out. And meanwhile, Governor’s Island would become the preserve of those affluent enough to afford an unsubsidized ferry trip, so the affluent would benefit from those Parks Department tax dollars, now diverted to Governor’s Island, but the less well off would not. My suggestion was to move the U.N. and embassies there and turn it into an “international peace island;’ the Giuliani Administration proposed a casino; a later iteration included CUNY; and still later an amusement park. But I knew as soon as Governor’s Island became the property of the city and state rather than the federal government, we were doomed. And now, according to the New York Observer, the nightmare is coming true.

Anyone who has loyally followed my columns over the past three years -Room Eight New York Politics (www.r8ny.com) and the Daily Gotham (www.dailygotham.com) -will be aware that I have been considering another run for public office for some time now. And if you missed part one of these columns then you need to go back into my archives on either website. It should be of no surprise to any of you that I gone beyond the exploratory stage, and has now formed a fundraising committee (Friends of Rock Hackshaw). Yes, I am still angry enough about the term-limits extension vote (amongst other factors), to make another run for public office: this time for city council and not the Assembly (as I did in 1998).    

In mid-June 2008 a total of 44 states had reported their 2006 Medicaid data in a form acceptable as final by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. That’s where the number still stands today seven months later, and rather than wait any longer, I’ve decided to summarize and describe what we have. Unfortunately, because I like to compare New York State with surrounding states as well as the national average, Massachusetts is among the non-reporters. The data, attached in two spreadsheets, includes each state’s percent share of the 44 states’ total Medicaid beneficiaries and expenditures, and its average cost of service per beneficiary, by type of service (nursing home, hospital, etc.) and age group. Additional data from other sources are included to put those numbers in context — each state’s share of the 44 states’ population, population in poverty, population age 65 or over and in poverty (recall that Medicaid was originally a program for the poor), personal income and per capita income (which correlates with the overall cost of living and what each state can afford). The summary tables, in the worksheets titled “output,” are primed to print, and compare the 44-state total with New York State and the sum of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Connecticut. The finding is that longstanding patterns remained in place in 2006, but with some new twists. A brief discussion follows.

"But unlike Kennedy or Cuomo, she isn't saddled with all that dynastic baggage. Perfect!" —Eve Fairbanks on Slate

Enough talk about the world of the Schlossberg wing of the Family Kennedy, it is time to talk about the world of a different Kennedy.

 “That year an ill wind blew over the city and threatened to destroy flowerpots, family fortunes, reputations, true love and several types of virtue” —The opening of “Roscoe” by William Kennedy

Perhaps it was the year the Albany Organization found itself without the County Executive’s position, and decided the solution was a Republican State Senator. The Organization’s incumbent, Howard Nolan, a Lace Curtain Irish breeder of thoroughbred race horses (though surely not the only Capitol Area Senator involved in “trading horses“, in every sense of that term), who had to travel the shortest distance to the Capitol of any of his colleagues, would often be found on session days at Belmont watching his latest acquisitions, with one of the Minority‘s “Local Government Coordinator‘s” acting as his chauffer in a State-owned vehicle . Given the Senator’s lack of interest in his duties, and the powerlessness of his position in the Minority, even if such an interest could be acquired, it was hard to say that his constituents were really suffering from the arrangement.

For the Albany Republicans, whose County Executive was stymied by a County Legislature under the control of the Democrats, a Senate seat in the Majority provided far better opportunities for avarice than the County Executive’s position. For the Democrats, it was the reverse. The Senate seat was a useless ornament, as was their Senator, while having the County Legislature without the Executive was like owning Boardwalk without Park Place. As their Senator, who’d long ago retired from his duties, was now set to retire from his title as well, a swap was arranged, a sure loser nominated, and the seats of power were re-arranged in a win/win manner.

I’m about to say something almost nice about Sheldon Silver, so I’m doing it early in the weekend so I’ll have the whole two days to recover. The next few years are certain to be years of severe fiscal pain for New York City and State, with higher taxes and collapsing services, and quite likely to be years of fiscal disaster akin to the 1970s. This is due not only to the recession, but also to the future-wrecking consequences of the deals, favors and non-decisions of the past two decades, consequences that are set to explode. Moreover, it may become increasingly difficult to defer (while increasing) those disastrous consequences through borrowing, which is what New York has done repeatedly in the recent past. Mr. Silver is among those who share most of the blame for this. But what would have happened if New York City and State, in addition, were staring down a multi-billion-dollar bill for the 2012 Olympics right now? Looks like Mr. Silver’s veto allowed New York to dodge an artillery shell. In any event, way back when a New York Olympics was first proposed by former Mayor Giuliani, I wrote that while other cities (such as Chicago) might need an established international event to bring the world to their door, New York City, being itself, could manage with something vastly lower (down to near zero) in cost and more indigenous. As they did with the New York City Marathon, the city’s people are organizations are capable of creating our own event. For those interested, my suggestion follows.

In the coverage of the appointment of new Senator Gillibrand, a number of media outlets (and Wikipedia) have gotten at least fact wrong.

They have described Gillibrand’s father, Douglas Rutnik, as a Republican lobbyist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/01/23/kirstin-gillibrand/

He is a lobbyist but he’s a registered Democrat.

Here’s Rutnik’s voter information from the Prime New York voter file (I removed some information for privacy concerns)
First name DOUGLAS Initial P Last name RUTNIK Suffix (jr,sr,etc) Gender (M or F) M City SCHENECTADY State NY Zipcode 12309 Phone number NOT FOUND Affiliation D Precinct 01 06 00014