Tag: Albany

In my previous post, I presented a spreadsheet of local government employment and payroll data from the U.S. Census Bureau, along with some related private sector data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and explained why and how it was compiled. In this post, I will once again go through some of the highlights showing how New York City and the rest of New York State compare with the national average and New Jersey, in this case in health care and education employment. Once again I stress that just because something is the national average doesn’t make it right, but substantial deviations need to be explained and justified. Here in New York, they are not even admitted. That is because state government, which created many of the priorities seen in local government data, is completely dominated by producers of public and publicly funded services, and has enacted one policy after another to ensure that less is received in exchange for more.

Why local government? The federal government collects the most money, but it sends most of it right out again in payments to the health care industry, aid to states, Social Security, and interest on the debt, and actually does little other than national defense and the Post Office. Direct services provided by states are limited, primarily state prisons, universities, mental hospitals, parks and unemployment and workers compensation insurance. Local governments and certain government-dependent private industries do most of the work of government, but under rules set and with substantial funds provided by state governments. So while the data is on local government, the issues are in large part state issues.

Michigan is a state much like our own. For years it has been run by and for those who have, let’s say, a very good deal as a result of their political and market power, to the detriment of the future and everyone else. Enough was taken out, and little enough put in, that younger generations of Michigan residents, if they choose to stay, are much less well off than older generations. The recession has accelerated the process. And like New York, Michigan has charged the retired, and particularly retired public employees, much lower taxes than those who are working are forced to pay, and handed tax breaks to large and oligopolistic corporations concentrated in a single industry while nailing new entrepreneurs with taxes. Governor Paterson even sent a chill up my spine by saying New York politicians should continue to back the power and privileges of the dwindling number of financial companies the way Michigan politicians backed the Big Three, to save jobs. Michigan has lost 18.0% of its jobs since 2000, along with hundreds of thousands of people. It’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is over 15.0%.

Suddenly, however, the Detroit Free Press has run a series of articles on a subject that no New York mainstream media outlet, let alone New York politician, is willing to talk about: should the state income tax system begin to charge the retired the same rate as workers pay on the same income? Before there are no workers left in the state to pay for and provide services to the retired.

I couldn't let a recent Daily News article pass without comment. Earlier we heard that many of those collecting signatures to get incumbent state legislators on the ballot were either staff members employed by those legislators, or employees of non-profits primarily or exclusively funded via grants from those legislators. Now today we hear that legislative staff members also served as campaign treasurers, a difficult job involving a lot of paper and use of a state computer program. No wonder those legislators don't see complicated ballot access and campaign finance rules as a problem. Evidently it isn't enough for them to collect money from lobbyists to fund their campaigns, and sell their votes in office for access to member items they hand out as if they were Santa Claus. They also expect, back door, for taxpayers to fund their signature collectors and campaign treasurers.

It was only about a decade ago that former Governor George Pataki and MTA head Virgil Conway, who were loading the agency with billions in debt so their generation could have things they didn’t have to pay for (with some getting more than others), generously decided that the half fare for senior citizens on subways, buses and trains would be available 24/7. As I recall, the federal government had required that such discounts be available in off peak hours. And now, as all those debts come due (and not just at the MTA), the agency is proposing to eliminate school passes for NYC school children, no matter how poor they are. The senior discounts, which are available no matter how affluent someone over 65 is, of course, would remain untouched. A two-part decision just like all the rest.

No doubt there will be lots of tut-tutting about this, by the rationalizers and hypocrites. On TV I just saw former state legislator Stringer, who generously voted for all those debts, all those pension enhancements, all those diversions of funds to more powerful interests, all those grasps at funds by his generation, saying how terrible it was. Perhaps this will be seen as a gambit to cut actual education at the schools further, and shift the money to the MTA. Except that as a result of the 25/55 pension deal of two years ago, education is eventually going to be slashed as much as transit service in any event. So perhaps Mayor Bloomberg might decide to stop going along with the propaganda and use this as “teachable moment.” And instead of going through the motions of a deal that makes the children even worse off but pretends to help them, instead back an all out effort to substitute bicycles for transit for the city’s school children.

“Governor David A. Paterson today signed into law pension reform legislation that will provide more than $35 billion in long-term savings to New York taxpayers over the next thirty years.” So cutting the pay of future public employees is described as a reform. But enriching the pay, after the past, of past and current public employees was also described as a reform. As most people use the word, one of these was in fact a robbery.

So what does reform mean in Albany? Adjusting the standard of living and quality of life of different groups of people, particularly different generations of people, to more accurately reflect the fact that some people matter and some people don’t?

Capital Confidential is reporting that people can watch live footage of Tier V being signed, with much cheering. I hope that some honest TV news organization will pair this footage with file footage of George Pataki signing the massive pension enhancement bill in 2000. And report that the latter is what older generations gave to themselves, and the former is a decision to make younger people worse off to pay for it. One of many such decisions.

The State Budget office, according to this source, has a budget calculator showing how much money will be saved by cutting the pensions of future public employees. Those savings will not be felt for years. But there is no such calculator showing the cost of past unearned retroactive pension enhancements, enhancements that were described, if they were described at all, as costing zero. Almost all of the state legislators who voted for Tier V also voted for and will personally benefit from those enhancements, including Governor Paterson (when he was a State Senator). Cutting benefits for future generartions is the politician's and union's share of shared sacrifice, they will likely say while our taxes soar and services are gutted. And unlike the "savings" from Tier V in the calculator, the cost of what they have done includes New York City.

I have two responses to the conviction of Joe Bruno on two counts for petty corruption. First, if Joe Bruno is guilty they all are (or rather since Joe Bruno is guilty they all are). And second, considering what this generation of state legislators have done to the common future of the state and anyone who will be living in it, this is the equivalent of convicting Al Capone for tax evasion rather than murder. While petty corruption is annoying, there is a limit to the extent it is damaging. Far more damage has been done by deals and non-decisions for which no one has been put on trial. I never cared about the helicopter rides, etc. The problem was and is the transfer of resources from everyone in the future (now the present) to provide unearned privileges to those manipulating the system in the present (now the past), all without any public accounting or debate, all hidden, all lied about.

From the Assembly press release on Tier V: "Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Governmental Employees Committee Chair Peter J. Abbate today announced the passage of legislation they sponsored (Extraordinary Session Bill A.26) that would enact a new and cost efficient tier of pension benefits for public employees which could save the state and local governments $48.5 billion over the next 30 years."

For more than a decade, this generation of state legislators have awarded one pension enhancement after another to their generation of public employees throughout New York State. These enhancements were granted retroactively, and not worked for or earned. And now, to ensure they in fact get to be paid for decades for doing nothing to benefit anyone else, they have taken back SOME of those pension enhancements for SOME of the FUTURE public employees, while their geneation has given back NOTHING. They say this will save $48.5 billion, which is the amount that will be transferred from future public employees unless they somehow reduce the quality of the work they do by that amount. If taking away SOME of the enhancements will save $48.5 billion, how come Silver, Abbate and the rest claimed that GRANTING those enhancements to begin with would cost ZERO? We have not yet begun to pay that zero.

There is certain to be at least a vote on Gay Marriage today. How do I know? So that all the State Senators, and all the Assembly Members, and the Governor, can talk about Gay Marriage, and only Gay Marriage, and explain why people should support them because of their stand on Gay Marriage. And nothing else.

Certainly not the decade-plus of pension enhancements for those cashing in and moving out, all in deals done in the dark, without debate and based on fradulent assumptions. Followed, this very day, by a new pension tier that will dramatically cut the lifetime total compensation of future public employees compared to those who are retiring. Again. They don't want to be asked why that is fair, and what it says about their values, and the unions' values, and their generation's values. They don't want to be asked what effect that will have on future public services. They don't want to be asked why existing and retired employees aren't being asked to give anything back. They don't want to be asked about the debate that didn't occur. Tehy don't want to be asked how this could possibly help the fiscal disaster that is going to gut public services, given that no new employees will be hired anyway. And they won't be, will they MSM?

Now that I have realized that public services and benefits face years if not decades of decline, the biggest issue in public finance, the one that concerns me personally and I think about every day, is whether the NYC public schools will begin their downward spiral to the 1970s in FY 2011 or FY 2012. If the latter my younger child, having chosen to leave the Catholic system and enter public high school, would get through her junior year. I’ve already given up on her senior year, and most of her generation of NYC kids didn’t get a public elementary school education either.
I’ve accepted that my taxes will soar (sales and property taxes have already increased and this is just getting started), the transit system will degrade as a result of all the debts dumped on the MTA, the parks will be unusable unless I donate to them (and perhaps even if I do), and the libraries will be open three days a week.

I don’t expect to get much of anything from Social Security, and much less from Medicare, as a result of what Generation Greed has promised itself by not paid for, expecting to grandfather itself from any sacrifice when the bills come due (already under discussion – Social Security and Medicare at 70, if you are still alive). It wouldn’t surprise me if Generation Greed’s representatives in Congress vote health care reform down. And I now know that I can’t be consoled that my paying more and getting less is a result of money being distributed to those less well off. In the era of Generation Greed, that’s not what government does anymore. So for me the whole public sector comes down to that one year of school. And now: