Those of Us Who Are About to Pay Our Taxes Salute You!

After years of corrupt and inept leadership, the State of New York is headed for another budget crisis. Why is this not a surprise? New York wastes more money per capita than any other government in history. Whose fault is this? Let us look at the record. Conservative GOOPer George Pataki was governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. He never delivered a budget on time and never reduced a deficit. During that entire period, the GOOP owned the state senate. The top guy in the Senate, Joe Bruno, was just convicted of taking payments for votes. In short, that's a good place to start. But I am not going to try to blame the entire NY budget mess on the GOOP. There is plenty of blame to go around. The favorite target for blame on the right is labor unions, which have controlled the State Assembly (House) for as many years as the GOOP has controlled the Senate. This is, of course, a knee jerk typical of the right. Labor may be part of the problem, but no more so than corporate interests which get many under the table tax breaks from the state. Everybody has a rice bowl and Albany is the place to go get it filled up. In New York, politics works great as long as you can hose down the squeaky wheel with the oil of taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers get some blame. A few years ago somebody wanted to balance the budget by cutting the school nurse program. You would have thought they were going to kill children!! I was new in the area at the time and was a little stunned to learn that concern for this program was nearly universal, not just a knee jerk liberal response. And while the liberal in me likes the idea of school nurse programs, I had never lived anyplace that had a school nurse, so I wondered if it wasn't a good place to cut. You gotta make choices, right? NO! New York kept the program and the budget was balanced with some magic accounting. New York has more than 700 organizations with the power to raise taxes or spend public money. These "authorities" and "special taxing districts" are rarely audited and thus rarely held accountable for the millions they can raise and spend. Moreover, these organizations often create lucrative payola opportunities for the politicians. Benefits have included substantial salaries (up to $150,ooo per year for one water authority board) and lifetime health insurance for board members and their families. In New York, each county is run by a legislature. Each legislator gets a salary and health insurance benefits. In Monroe County there are 35 legislators paid $20,000 each. In Suffolk County, there are 18 legislators being paid $86,000 each. Legislators have paid staff and offices, among other perks. By comparison, Arlington County, VA has five commissioners earning about $50,000 annually. The New York Assembly routinely budgets about $100 million for pocket money. This money is given out by the majority leaders to members of the Assembly and the Senate to be spent any way they wish. For example, the local Choral Society may get $10 K for new robes, the mental health clinic may get $50 K for a new bus. It has good and bad uses, but its primary function is to maximize the value of incumbency by providing elected officials with a slush fund to payoff political supporters by supporting their favorite causes. Often times these transactions involving taxpayer money are announced with great fanfare and thanks to the politician as though it was a personal contribution. While Albany simmers in the slime of rice bowl politics, New York's leadership fiddles. No one is accountable. Everyone is full of crap. Politicians who want publicity can always get it by getting a new law passed. They substitute hype for actual performance on the politician's score card, so opportunities to create new laws are highly valued in the Empire State. For example, New York now has a law that makes drinking and driving even more illegal than ever before if you have children in the car. Aren't the regular drinking and driving laws enough? Is a charge of reckless manslaughter not sufficient to cover a case where a car load of kids are killed because the driver was smashed? No matter. The issue got publicity and the politicians behind it look real busy. In the meantime Rome burns and the much beleagured Governor is hoping to make ends meet by legalizing ultimate fighting in New York. Hey, how about gladiators in Yankee Stadium? Nationally televised murder and mayhem could actually bring in enough money to get us through all this.