With the Second Avenue Subway, the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central, and other major rail projects planned, borrowed for, financially diverted from and abandoned, in some cases several times, new politicians on the block face a dilemma. Come up with even more money to carry out those plans, and they get the blame for the cost and disruption while the irresponsible pols that preceded them get credit for the improvement. Fail to do so and they might get blamed for the absence of such improvements. Thus, a few ambitious up and comers have hit upon water transportation as a new mode they can get credit for supporting, and have hit upon calls for public subsidies as a way to get their name in the news. Unfortunately, such subsidies would divert scarce resources from the existing subway system most New Yorkers rely on, to a new luxury mode that almost exclusively serves the better off — and relatively few of them at that. On a populist basis, such a proposal is easily and fairly attacked. There is, however, a potential transformational investment to that very subway system, one not on anybody’s radar screen, that would permanently increase the potential of ferry service as a transport mode. The opportunity to make that investment is about to close as a result of a development that would be built in its path. That investment is…
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Yvette Clarke Picks Up Big Momentum
|In the race for Brooklyn’s 11th Congressional District, Yvette Clarke is picking up momentum ("Big Mo"- as it is called). She has snagged the endorsement of the powerful Health Workers (1199) Union. She has also snagged the endorsement of another major trade union: 32BJ.
Added to these endorsements, is another from city-councilmember Darlene Meily. Ms. Clarke – the only woman in the race – has been picking up endorsements left and right of late, and seems to be trying to make up for her lacklustre fundraising.
Most pundits seem to think that she is the frontrunner in this race.
Twenty Years From Now Public Employee Pensions Will Not Be Paid!
|Imagine it’s 20 years from now, the year 2026. After 43 years in which Social Security payroll taxes had been greater than Social Security payments, with the surplus used to finance the rest of the federal government (but also promised to future retirees), the Social Security system will have begun to run a deficit in 2018. Taxes will have been substantially increased, and many kinds of federal spending (housing subsidies at the top of the list) slashed to pay Social Security back, but now Congress has no choice but to bite the bullet and drastically slash Social Security benefits for future retirees. That’s bad for the 50% of private sector workers who have no retirement plan other than Social Security, and bad for the additional 30% who only have a 401K plan – a plan they now realize has nowhere near enough money to pay for decent retirement. The poverty rate among the elderly, who have been the richest and most privileged of Americans for the past 60 years, begins to soar.
NY Times Endorsements
|There is a general belief among people active in politics that a candidate who challenges his or her opponent’s petitions forfeits any chance of receiving the New York Times endorsement or at the very least guarantees criticism by The Times of such “undemocratic” tactics.
Many, including me, think that fear is what prevented the Ferrer campaign from challenging the petitions of Christopher Brodeur & Art Piccolo for Mayor even though leaving them on the ballot increased the likelihood of a Primary Run-off.
I don’t agree with this view. I think that the Times Editorial Board considers a number of factors in deciding whom to endorse and whether a candidate takes advantage of the election law is a relatively minor one.
The Michael Moore Democrats
|I have been recently been taken to task for my use of the phrase “the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party”. Given the use of the term “Michael Moore Democrats” by Republicans who’d like to tar us all, I think it is important to draw the distinction in my use. My usage is to make clear that while this tendency does exist, and exemplifies a strong and virulent strain of thought on the American left, it should not be used as a broad brush to tar us all. Frankly, the Moore group is smaller than it appears; unfortunately, the problem is twofold; its prominence among the media, which magnifies its importance to observers in the punditocracy and the heartland, and its malignant influence among other liberals who really do not believe in the same mindless kant. One reader said to me “I am damned proud to be a Michael Moore Democrat.” However, I don’t think he really understands what he is saying.
Medicaid: The Family of Last Resort Dilemma
|Society faces a dilemma. It does not want to see children and the elderly suffer from the neglect of family members. When it assumes the role of “family of last resort,” however, it encourages the selfish to shift family burdens onto the community, taxing those who meet such obligations to pay for it. Concerns about burden shifting by parents led to the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which cut them off from assistance after five years even at the risk of suffering by the children. Yet the modest, and now miniscule, cost of welfare is dwarfed by the cost of custodial care for the elderly, and as the population ages that cost is set to explode, with consequences that dwarf those of baby boom retirement and the unfunded cost of Social Security. This may be the most important financial issue we face as a society. And for New York, which has more generous services for the elderly than any other state, it is a greater issue still.
Who’s Not Running
|A while ago, I reported on the candidates who filed petitions to run in contested Primaries in New York City. Now I’m reporting which elections in New York State do not have a traditional Republican vs. Democrat contest. That is, the Congressional & State Legislative districts where either the Democrats or Republicans do not have a candidate running.
Congress
4 Democratic Members of Congress – Rep. Gary Ackerman, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. Anthony Weiner & Rep. Maurice Hinchey have no Republican opponents.
State Senate
15 of the 62 State Senators do not have major Party opponents. 7 are Democrats from New York City plus 1 Republican from NYC – Marty Golden.
I Guess It All Depends Upon Your Definition of “Progress”
|The number of phone calls I’ve gotten urging me to support Chris Owens for Congress because he is the most “progressive” candidate, has gotten me thinking (always a dangerous activity). The term “progressive” is obviously meant as a shorthand, but shorthand for what? Earlier this year, WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor said Eliot Spitzer would be the most progressive Democratic governor since FDR, ignoring the fact that Roosevelt’s immediate successor, Herbert Lehman, was clearly more progressive than FDR. Moreover, depending upon how the word is defined, Spitzer might also be said to be less “Progressive” than Charles Poletti, Averill Harriman, Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. Mario’s WORDS were certainly more progressive than Spitzer’s; Mario’s DEEDS (to the extent he ever did anything but blame his complete lack of accomplishments on a Republican Senate he refused to expend any of his political capital, monetary or otherwise, on trying to alter for the better) may not so qualify.
Medicaid: Parsing The High Cost Per Recipient (Second of Three)
|As I reported here, in 2003 New York State was charged $7,912 per Medicaid beneficiary, 76% higher than the national average of $4,487 and more than any other state. This is not a surprise, as New York has had the highest Medicaid spending per recipient as far back as I have collected data. And, I once read a paper that described New York State’s Medicaid program as being vastly more expensive than other states in the early 1970s, less than a decade after the program was created. In fact, I saw a film on the Channel 25 “City Classics” program showing a press conference by former Mayor Abe Beame, who was bemoaning the fact that Medicaid spending was out of control and seeking to use city resources to combat fraud to stop it. The state had no interest in doing so, Beame said, because it could simply force the city to pay.
NYC Demography: A Stunningly Rapid Change
|I’ll have to interrupt my series on Medicaid, which was delayed by a computer problem at home, to call your attention to recent data from the American Community Survey. The data on educational attainment, written up in today’s Times, is in fact shocking. I say that as someone who has looked at similar data over long periods of time. It’s not so much the direction of the change, which corresponds with what I see on the street, but its scope and speed.
The share of the city’s population that is high-school and college-educated is soaring; the share that has not completed high school is plunging. This cannot be the result of the educational attainment of those who comes through the city’s schools: the state’s policy of making the life-chances of the city’s children even worse that it would otherwise be has thus far succeeded. Rather, it is a function of who is moving in and who is moving out or dying off. The former are better off than the latter, and the population turnover appears to be rapid.