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Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man
"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly."
- Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783
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Thursday, June 24, 2004
N.Y. TAX FOLLIES By E.J. McMAHON June 24, 2004 -- THANKS to state budget gridlock in Albany, New York City homeowners will have to wait at least a little longer for Mayor Bloomberg's $400 property tax rebate. Good. Not because New Yorkers don't need or deserve a tax break — they do. But the added delay will give taxpayers more time to ponder what's really going on here. After all, Mayor Bloomberg's proposal isn't really a tax cut. It's an income-transfer from businesses and landlords (especially in wealthy Manhattan) to homeowners (especially in the outer boroughs). And as an income-transfer, it's fairly cheap by New York City budget standards — requiring him to kick back just $250 million of a record $1.8 billion property-tax hike enacted in late 2002. City taxes have been increased a total $3 billion a year as of Fiscal Year 2004, compared to the last Giuliani budget in Fiscal Year 2002. This, along with the belatedly improving city economy, is the primary reason why New York City temporarily enjoys a budget surplus. The key word here is "temporary": Real and lasting tax relief would demand more determined efforts to reduce the city budget. Instead, the reverse is happening: City-funded spending will rise at well above the rate of inflation under Bloomberg's 2005 budget, leading to some of the largest future budget gap projections on record. When Bloomberg first floated his rebate proposal in January, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller countered with a much better idea — an across-the-board rate cut for all payers in the city's four-class property-tax system. However, the council was unwilling to devote the resources necessary to pay for anything more than a token 2 percent cut on this basis. Last week, Miller surrendered. The speaker agreed to the property-tax rebate in exchange for the mayor's agreement to add earned income credits for the working poor. When the council formally adopts the city budget today, it will cap things off with $215 million in added spending, further reducing the prospects for real tax cuts in the near future. The rebate plan exacerbates a long-term trend in which more and more of the city tax burden has been shifted to wealthy individuals, businesses and landlords. But a narrower tax base is a prescription for more of the sort of wild revenue gyrations the city experienced between 2001 and 2003. To make matters worse, Bloomberg had wanted the state Legislature to make the rebate a permanent part of the city's already unfair and complex property-tax law. Future mayors and councils would then be able to manipulate the rebate in a way that would put even more of the tax burden on owners and occupants of commercial property and apartment buildings. The final version of the bill corrects this problem with a pair of provisions backed by Miller, with the support of the real-estate industry: * If the mayor and council want to squeeze more money out of the property tax over the next three years, they must first reduce the homeowner rebate before raising the tax rate. * After three years, homeowners will not continue to receive the rebate unless all classes of property get a rate cut of equal value. * * * Read the rest of the article here. Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Those animals did it again...  Those animals did it again. Their fondness for cold-bloodedly beheading innocent and unarmed captives reveals the depravity and dangerousness of these demons. They cannot be reasoned with; they cannot be negotiated with; they cannot be appeased; they cannot be tolerated; they cannot be allowed to continue. In short, they must be killed. All of them. But when our forces do it it won't be in cold blood, and those on the receiving end of U.S. wrath won't be innocents working towards a better Iraq. I've had it with our undue restraint. If we don't hit them hard, they will, make no mistake, continue to capture innocents and cruelly kill them.
[Ed. note - business as usual in Albany. And we pay these people to, in essence, accomplish nothing.] Unproductive Session In Albany Comes To A Close From NY1.com JUNE 22ND, 2004 When the state’s formal legislative session ends on Tuesday, it won't be remembered for what was accomplished, but rather for what lawmakers failed to do. Everyone from lobbyists to those in the highest ranks of power agree that this may have been the least productive session in memory. “It is extremely disappointing and frustrating and, I believe, a disservice to the people of New York” said Governor George Pataki. “But we will continue to push, continue to work.” As each hour passes, hope fades that deals will be struck by the time legislators leave the capitol. But they won't be going home for good." Read the entire article here. Tuesday, June 15, 2004
[Ed. Note - Sorry for the mid-June slack-off here at AngryNYker.com. It isn't that we're any less angry; far from it. Indeed the revolting picture of Albany at the end of a spectacularly do-nothing session in what was once proudly called the Empire State, and is now, perhaps, more accurately dubbed the "Mired State", has made the whistling steam from our ears noticeable blocks away. But just as fish gotta swim, and birds gotta fly, sometimes we have some other business to attend -- after all, unlike the NYS legislature we get things done on time.] Some good news, some bad news... June 15, 2004 New York Outpaces U.S. Economic Growth Read the rest of the article here. And the bad news, but I'd take the following with a large grain of salt, and I'll be Fisking this article shortly. June 14, 2004 Fair-Housing Groups Say New York City Is Falling Behind By DAVID W. CHEN, N.Y. Times http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/14/nyregion/14fair.html?pagewanted=print&position= For decades, New York City was considered a pioneer in the fight for fair housing. It passed the country's first law forbidding discrimination in private housing in 1958. It passed a tough, broader human rights law in 1991 that exceeded federal criteria. It even had one of the first federally financed watchdog groups, the Open Housing Center, to pursue claims of bias, holding real estate brokers and landlords to account if they gave preference to one race over another or discriminated against the disabled. In the last few years, however, many housing advocates say that this commitment has flagged, and there is substantial evidence that the city remains one of the most segregated places to live in the nation. * * * Read the entire article here. Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy and Other Democrat Senators were at it again today... I don't know how Senator Joe Biden passed the Delaware bar. (See Biography of Senator Biden, available at http://biden.senate.gov/bio.html (noting he "graduated from . . . Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. Prior to his election to the Senator, Biden practiced law in Wilmington, Delaware . . . . Since 1991, Biden has been an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar on constitutional law.")). Senator Biden's grasp of U.S. law and the constitution appears, judging from his statements and his comments on, say, C-SPAN, extremely squishy, and I feel for the students he teaches at Widener Univ. Indeed, Senator Biden's biography flatly proclaims he's "[o]ne of the most respected voices on national security and civil liberties. . . ." Id. I suppose that viewpoint depends who you ask. I don't think Biden's a "bad" man; he's merely terribly confused and has gotten increasingly strident over the past years. This afternoon Senator Biden and the usual suspects grilled Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft during a full Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled "DOJ Oversight: Terrorism and Other Topics." (Watch the entire hearing online via C-SPAN, available at rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter060804_ashcroft.rm; see also Statement of the Honorable Orrin Hatch, June 8, 2004, available at http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=1212&wit_id=51; Statement of the Honorable Patrick Leahy, June 8, 2004, available at http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=1212&wit_id=2629). Although it appeared he simply could not believe what some of the Senators were saying to him, Atty. Gen. Ashcroft's one-two jabs at Senators Kennedy, Biden and others were worth watching. (See also Statement of John Ashcroft Attorney General Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate Oversight of the Department of Justice: Terrorism and Other Topics, June 8, 2004, available at http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1212&wit_id=42). I only wish Gen. Ashcroft had more of a sense of humor. Humor goes a long way. In fact, I view anyone without a good sense of humor rather askance. President Reagan certainly torpedoed his critics via humor more effectively than through any stern rebuffing -- a lesson I could benefit from as well [after all, I'm the "Angry" NYker, not the Jovial NYker, nor the Humorous, but Effective NYker]. But this brings me back to Joe Biden. After Atty. Gen. Ashcroft, a former Senator himself, stated he would not turn over the memos to Congress, nor detail his rationale for the withholding beyond executive branch independence (he expressly did not invoke executive privilege, which only the President can invoke), Senator Biden responded, "General that means you may be in contempt of Congress then. * * * You gotta have a reason not to answer are questions as you know from sitting up here. * * * You are not allowed under our constitution not to answer our questions. And that ain't, that ain't constitutional."Really? Do tell, Senator. Where in the constitution does it say the executive branch must answer specific questions posed by congress? You must be working off a different version of the Constitution, because in my copy no such language appears. Indeed, I searched Article I in vain to find such any text granting Congress the right to command the Executive branch to answer questions. What I do see in Article II, which elaborates upon the executive branch, is Section 2, cl. 1 provides some strong support for the Attorney General's position. Namely it says: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, . . . Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments,. . . ." A case can easily be made that Congress has no power to demand these internal documents from either the Attorney General or the President, and it would do Biden and Kennedy well to keep in mind that we have a three-branch government, not two branches and then some guys who work for the President. Saturday, June 05, 2004
Ronald W. Reagan - February 6, 1911 - June 5, 2004 I remember how strongly I opposed Reagan as president back in the 1980's. My Dad, listening to my sputtering, simply said my opinion would change as I got older. At the time I was absolutely certain it wouldn't. I was wrong. My Dad was right. Today, firmly in the Republican camp, and watching Reagan's inaugurial address on C-SPAN as I type this, I realize this country needs men like Reagan today more than ever. History will, and I argue has, judged him to be one of the strongest presidents of the 20th century, who was exactly what the country needed exactly when it needed it. Thank you, Mr. President. “Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”- Ronald Reagan For more information about President Reagan:
U.S. Out of Germany! Sometimes you just have to laugh at the Europeans' transparent manuevering and hardly "sophisticated" reactions. (But aren't Europeans all more sophisticated than us provincial Americans?) See Roger Cohen, A very French idea, but it hides the truth, International Herald Tribune, June 5, 2004, available at http://www.iht.com/articles/523352.html (observing the French notion "France knows better than American what America really is or should be.")
"Now, I have often wondered, as we approached Normandy and D-Day, how that might have been reported if we had had 24-hour news, seven days a week, and the folks were being killed as they approached the beach, and the gliders were being spewed across the countryside, many missing their landing targets, and our forces were trapped below Pointe d'Hawke (ph) and not able to get up. I supposed they would have been calling General Eisenhower back for congressional hearings, is probably what would have been the case." Dept. of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld Excerpts of Town Hall Meeting, News Transcript, athttp://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040604-secdef0811.html (last visited June 4, 2004). Thursday, June 03, 2004
Is this a surprise? Not really. From Gotham Gazette - www.gothamgazette.com "The New York State Financial Control Board reviewed Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed $46.9 billion budget and found the "city's finances remain structurally unbalanced." Despite an improving economy and an expected surplus in this year's financial plan, the state board warned of serious problems ahead that can only be solved through permanent spending cuts or increases in taxes. Spending for Medicaid, employee pensions, and union contracts are expected to dramatically increase in the future. The city is also relying too heavily on temporary increases to the personal income and sales taxes that will expire over the next two years, the board said." None of the above will come as a surprise to any AngryNYker.com readers. The real question is, will anything be done before reality painfully forces change? The NYS Financial Control Board's June 2 report, Review of FY 2004, is available here - http://www.fcb.state.ny.us/pdf/NYC_Review_of_FY_2004.pdf. The report is actually fairly damning, with such choice passages as: "there has been no real improvement in the city's fiscal situation since FY 2003 despite relying on $1 billion in temporary tax increases and experiencing very strong growth in the continuing tax base because of the upturn in the economy. A major reason for this lack of improvement is that last year the city relied on some $3 billion intemporary resources, including $1.5 billion from borrowed funds to pay for operating expenses. The report only came out yesterday, but I'd expect this to be front page news in all the NY papers. It isn't. The question is why? Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Unemployed Man Hit By Bus There's either an interesting, though sad, trend underway, or I've only just noticed the ongoing practice, but what's with the New York media's practice of identifying everyone by their occupation? For example, today's New York Times [see here] and NY1.com [see here] are both highlighting a story about Monica Meadows, who was shot in the subway the other day. The Times headline reads, "Model Shot in Subway by Unknown Assailant Who Flees", while NY1.com's headline reads "Aspiring Model/Actress Shot On Subway In Midtown." Other papers and outlets' headlines are similar. I started noticing this practice after the tragic murder of Sarah Fox in Inwood Hill Park. Every description led with "Juilliard student". In searching the New York Times' archive I've discovered the practice is very common: "Stunned Japan Agonizes Over Schoolgirl Stabbing," "Fairfield University Senior Is Killed by a Bus," etc. You get the idea. Although the mantra drilled into school kids everywhere is "you can become whatever you want to become," a nice, but patently false aspiration, it appears reality is more mundane. Namely, that when you die, or the media turns its staring eye upon you, the headline will simply note your occupation or affiliation at the moment. Everything else about you will be discarded. |
Instanbul, Turkey. See Projecting stability – the agenda for NATO’s Istanbul Summit, available at 