Republican Budget Cuts Help Enrich The Rich

George Bush may be out of office but Republicans are still giving to his base...and robbing the rest of us to pay for it.

In CA, Schwarzenegger Completely Abandons The Poor

We all know that Governor Paterson has been fighting with the Assembly and the Senate to make paycuts, increase various taxes and cut programs here and there. As bad as the budget crisis is here in New York, the situation is far more grievous in the Golden State. While the Legislature in Sacramento is quite liberal, the Governor, or more aptly, the Gover-nator is not and his solution to the budget deficit is akin to a sledgehammer for those that are barely getting by.

From RawStory:

Schwarzenegger's budget proposals would see spending cuts of 12.4 billion dollars and include the elimination of California's welfare-to-work program and virtually all child care for low income families.

"California no longer has low-hanging fruits," Schwarzenegger said in Sacramento. "We have to take the ladder away from the tree and shake the whole tree. We must make very difficult decisions."

Schwarzenegger said his spending cuts would eliminate 60 percent of funding for community mental health. Low income families would also lose access to state-subsidized day care for children, the governor added.

Schwarzenegger's grammatical problems pale in comparison to his apathy for the millions of Californians that live in poverty. He also talks of shaking the tree in search of fruit, but ignores the truly hard decision to roll back tax cuts that have been given to corporations and wealthy individuals throughout his tenure and from decades past. Californians must remind Arnold that the poor have been spit upon plenty by corporate America already, the government must not continue the same despicable practice.

Smith Decides To Get On The Ball For An MTA Bailout

Speaking of train service and mass transit, the fate of MTA's service and price of the fare hangs in the balance. The deadline according to the MTA officials is coming up a week from Wednesday and the State Senate has been dragging its' collective feet on bailing out the struggling transit authority. Last week Majority Leader Smith called the deadline "questionable" and accused them of holding us all hostage. Meanwhile everyone else was quite serious about implementing a bill similar to the Ravitch Commission's proposal and ensuring that the doomsday scenario does not occur. Smith looked foolish in the face of the seriousness of the matter, and now he's finally beginning to realize that.

From PolitickerNY:

ALBANY—After two weeks of public hemming and hawing on the issue of the M.T.A. bailout, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith says he will present a plan to members this afternoon to plug the M.T.A.'s deficit.

Sources involved in formulating plan with Senate leadership said that central staffers worked on the plan all weekend, and are trying to keep it as much under wraps as possible so as not to be co-opted by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Silver's position is on the table.

"All I'm going to say is that it's good and I think will work for everyone," one of the sources said.

The rest of the article gives a timeline of the MTA bailout battle and is great for anyone that hasn't been following a possible fare hike and simultaneous service cuts for our mass transit system.

As for Smith, he's doing the right thing by realizing that the deadline is a hard date that needs to be adhered to so that straphangers do not have to pay extra and lose service. Hemming and hawwing will not get you anywhere with voters when they start to suffer the effects of political inaction. And for the other Senators that tried to block a bailout bill for the MTA, shame on them as well. Grandstanding does nothing for New York and only a small boost for the politician's already over-inflated ego.

WFP Connects Majority Leader Smith Back To His Constituents

Plenty of State Senators want to see a drastic change in the state's budget being considered for the coming fiscal year. Several forms of a millionaire's tax have been introduced in both chambers, but the Governor and Majority Leader Malcolm Smith have not warmed enough to the idea to moderate spending cuts with an additional tax on the wealthiest New Yorkers. So to bring a little fire to Malcolm, the Working Families Party is talking to the people that elect Smith into office every two years. WFPers are going door to door in Smith's area of Queens to deliver a message.

From Newsday:

“Governor Paterson, I’m willing to make sacrifices, but there’s no way I’m putting my little girl’s future at risk,” the flier reads. “There’s a better way. Tell Majority Leader Smith (to) Stop the Governor’s Budget Cuts.”

The flier has the logo of the Working Families Party and a tear-off, postage-paid postcard that can be mailed to the Healthcare Education Project, a venture of the 1199/SIEU union reprinting many health care workers and the Greater New York Hospital Association.

The postcard has a plug for the Fair Share Tax Reform, which the WFP and its allies say “would roll back tax cuts for the wealthiest New Yorkers... those making more than $250,000 would pay their fair share so we can balance the budget without devastating cuts... Over the last 30 years, New York has reduced income tax rates for the wealthiest New Yorkers by 50% and eliminated high income tax brackets, resulting in $8 billion of lost revenue each year.”

And it all comes back to the Governor's message of "shared sacrifice," only it really reflects the sentiment. WFP is absolutely right to mention how income taxes have been continually cut, reducing revenue to make government work for the majority of our state that makes far below $250,000 (or even if the bill starts out with people making $500,000, that still makes a big difference). Conservatives love to cry about run-away spending, but when you cut revenues, it helps them make the argument to say we can't afford those programs because they leave out all the facts.

Paterson's State Of The State For 2009

I don't know if you had an hour and change to kill during the middle of the day to see the Governor's State of the State speech, but I did. Gov. Paterson addressed a lot of different items, many of them we know from his earlier roll out of the plan for the 2009 budget. Much of what he said we already know, shared sacrifice, tough times, sugar tax, etc.

What I liked hearing was his mentioning of preventive care funding and getting away from how we currently waste dollars in our state's health care system. Attacking that issue at the root cause is the smart thing to do for the future. So is expanding health care from parents to children from ages 19-29. Also, putting money into education is another great way to invest in the future. New York is in tough times now, and the only way to dig ourselves out is to do it smartly and to prepare for brighter days ahead. They won't come unless you lay out the road to them.

Unfortunately, the Governor is taking away from education by raising tuition for students that are having trouble affording college as it is already. Also, as the People's State of the State addresses, the crisis we are in now is due to the greed of the wealthy in and around Wall Street. Everyone is suffering due to their incompetence and failure. As Mark Dunlea of the Hunger Action Network mentions, the speech in Albany is always (and was) more positive than the realities out there. If the Governor wants to get real about our problems and ways of solving them, we need to have fair taxation for all, not just those that like sugary soft drinks.

Paterson is good at talking with us, now let him know how you feel about what he's offering and what we need to add to the budget to make it work for all of us.

Education Budget Gets Hit Hard By Paterson

Now that the Governor's officially proposed budget is out, we can see many different taxes and plenty of budget cuts. Besides health care, no sector is being hurt the most than our public education system. University students are being smacked with large tuition increases instead of having the CUNY and SUNY budgets slashed but the kids that are in grades K-12 are going to have their school's budgets cut to the tune of $206 million in NYC alone.

From The NY Daily News:

Gov. Paterson is expected to unveil a doom-and-gloom $121 billion spending plan Tuesday that slices $206 million from New York City schools.

In addition to the 3.3% school aid cut, Paterson will look to slash local aid funding to the city by $244 million, a source said.

The nearly half a billion dollars in city cuts do not take into consideration other planned reductions for the city or the Medicaid cuts city hospitals are facing.

Everyone is going to be hurting from the next budget, at least as it stands now. If the Legislature would stand up and demand that the rich take some responsibility for what is going on with a millionaire's tax or a more progressively scaled income tax that could help the majority of taxpayers. Of course I won't be holding my breath, no matter how much the WFP and the majority of New York wants to see tax increases for the wealthy coupled with budget cuts. Funding education is essential to our economic growth in the future, denying them a quality schooling will cost far more in the long run than hacking off a small slice of wealth at the very top.

S.I. Advance Finds NY City Council In Disarray

There was plenty to be grateful for during Thanksgiving (and every day of course) but a working City Council in New York City is not one of them. In a lengthy report the Staten Island Advance has found that the legislature in our city is divided and broken over the term limits fiasco. Not only were things heated between members of the Council last month, but continuing even today with the budget battle looming.

From The S.I. Advance:

In the aftermath of the most divisive battle in recent City Hall history, many members of the City Council who spoke with the Advance said they find it difficult, if not impossible, to trust some of their colleagues. A few even described the institution itself as broken -- that now, more than ever, people seem to be just going through the motions.

The question is, how will that affect the way they work together? Over the next few months, while they negotiate with Bloomberg to finalize a plan to chop hundreds of millions of dollars from spending in this year's budget and even more from the budget for the next fiscal year, will the tough choices they make represent the best choices for the people of this city -- or the deals brokered simply for political advantage?

Brokered deals bred out of ethically-challenged, smoke-filled rooms? In our Council?!? Can I make sarcasm drip out of your monitor on this one? Seriously though, we have long known about how City Hall works and the fact that the term limits extension bill passed is a testament to just how broken it is. What makes me hopeful (to a degree) with all of this mess is that there are actually Council Members that realize how flawed the system is, particularly the ones that voted against the Mayor's undemocratic 845A legislation and that heads must roll for it.

As the Advance notes, Tony Avella and others understand that those that voted for selfish reasons need to be voted out of office. Now that we know what's going on, it is time to act. Every single Council Member must join the thousands of New Yorkers who demand change from their government. We must work together to find challengers to the Bloomberg 29 and work as hard as we can to get competent people into the chamber who will represent their constituents for a change and not the whims of an egotistical plutocrat such as Michael Bloomberg.

Cutting NYC's Culture Budget

All of New York City is going to feel the hurt that budget cuts have, no matter what the institution is. Whether it be less beds for the homeless to sleep in during the coming cold winter nights or higher property taxes for those that are lucky enough to have NYC real estate, the pain is coming in one way or another. Of course for some, like the poor, it'll be worse, but everyone is going to be affected by the slashing of our cultural budgets.

From PolitickerNY:

As Michael Bloomberg announced ways in which New Yorkers could enjoy cheap or free cultural activities in the city, Cultural Affairs Department head Kate Levin testified at a City Council hearing about how the mayor’s budget cutbacks are affecting the department and the cultural groups it supports.[...]

Here are a few items from a chart they prepared outlining how much money some institutions will lose by the end of Fiscal Year 2009:

--American Museum of Natural History: $2,790,746, a 22 percent reduction from the previous fiscal year;

--Carnegie Hall: $271,687, a 33 percent reduction;

--Lincoln Center: $1,035,290, a 42 percent reduction;

--Metropolitan Museum of Art: $1,691,246, a 13 percent reduction;

--Staten Island Children’s Museum: $170,146, a 31 percent reduction.

From Manhattan to Staten Island, the price of going to the museum or the opera is going to go up. While the arts can be easily overlooked by politicians, it is important to remember that when you make these institutions raise their prices, it shuts the door onto a form of higher learning. For those that can't afford to pay $20, $30 or $50 to see the myriad priceless treasures our city has to offer, it'll be one more way for Bloomberg to make our city serve the rich before anyone else.

Albany Erupts And As Usual, Nothing Gets Done

Today was supposed to be the big start to a round of budget cuts that got the state moving in the right direction towards a budget in the black, or at least closer to it. Instead, partisan bickering, lobbyists and even activists outside made things go from tenuous to outright dysfunctional. In the end, the important few days Paterson swore were more important than anything, went completely down the drain.

From The Daily Politics:

Gov. David Paterson just called a halt to the squabbling at the leaders meeting and declared this non-session special session officially dead.

"I think it is clear that this special session on Nov. 18 will not yield the result that we want today...What I think we will do at this point is we will end this special session of the leaders meeting."

Paterson said he'll wait until he submits his 2009-2010 budget on Dec. 16 (about a month before he is constitutionally mandated to do so) to reconvene this discussion, adding: "I would like to, in terms of the way that we assess the budget, remain dedicated to closing this year's budget within this year."

Basically nothing gets done until the beginning of next year. There'll be plenty of time for the legislature to figure something out by the beginning of the next fiscal year, but you can probably throw away the hope that anything gets done to try and hold the ship steady for the rest of FY 2008-9.

Perhaps by then we'll have our majorities in both houses in order, and we might be able to make some progress. Of course, that could just as wishful as thinking about a balanced budget that doesn't break the back of the middle and working class.

Paterson Offers Higher Ed A Bone While Swiping A Leg

City University of New York Chancellor Matthew Goldstein praised the Governor for a "paradigm shift" by offering a small portion (10% in the first year) of his proposed tuition hikes for CUNY and SUNY back to the schools. Chancellor Goldstein of course is probably just happy from his recent $55,000 dollar raise, bringing his salary and benefits to over half a million a year. That he gets to swim in his money when students have to pay for a substitute for budget cuts is obscene. Perhaps it is his job as an Administrator to keep money flowing in and not out, but he must have forgot that the ones kicking in the extra dough are the students who can least afford it in these troubled times.

From The NY Times:

“The way it is now certainly is not the best way to do things,” said H. Carl McCall, a member of the SUNY board. “Any tuition program we put forward would be some program that would look at predictable, regular increases rather than these spikes during a crisis.”

In the past, he said, such a change has met resistance among lawmakers. “They feel their constituents are hard-pressed and don’t want to pay additional fees every year,” he explained.

Well yeah, no one wants to pay extra fees, but legislators looking at such a drastic budget cut called for by Paterson might not hear the students as well when faced with the alternative of pissing off their wealthy contributors. The millionaire's tax is getting some discussion but Paterson is adamantly against any kind of tax increase. What really needs to happen is for Paterson to be pushed to change his mind and pinch the pockets of the 26,000 Millionaires in this state and not the millions who are going to shoulder the burden of hard times if he gets to keep things his way.

As for tuition increases, Pat Callan of the National Center for Public and Higher Education has the right idea:

The concern is that if the colleges and universities are allowed to increase tuition annually, they will still turn to even-bigger increases during tough economic times because that is easier than the alternative of cutting spending.

“It is a whacko system that no one defends,” said Mr. Callan. “But it works well enough for the colleges and legislators, so no one is willing to risk changing it.”

He said the current crisis presented a brief window of opportunity by focusing attention on the problem.

“As soon as this moment passes, then there is no real incentive to fix it,” he said.

Now is the time to make things right and not spike the cost for those that are trying to go back to college in tough times. Ideally we shouldn't be paying for tuition to our state schools as it was decades ago, but we can at least start turning the trend around so that the system puts students closer to the front of the line when the budget battles heat up. We as the public can stand up and join CUNY faculty and groups like NYPIRG to fight back. Politicians do hear us when we organize, but we must be loud when Wall Street comes into the room with a multi-million dollar sound system when we have a bullhorn at best.

Quinn's Protests Over Senior Centers Aren't Fooling Anyone

Christine Quinn is up in arms over proposed cuts to senior centers made by Mayor Bloomberg and she isn't going to take it! She insists it isn't a symbolic protest, but I couldn't throw that denial farther than a granite slab in Central Park. She went from being a good Democratic activist to the Mayor's chief official tool. Now she wants to make believe that she is some sort of tough Council Speaker who stands up for the people, pffft!

From PolitickerNY:

Christine Quinn took the unusual step of protesting Michael Bloomberg, the mayor with whom she’s had an extremely close working relationship.

The protest was over the mayor’s plan to restructure the city's senior centers. Critics say the plan will not save money, and will reduce services unnecessarily. The mayor’s administration has argued the changes are a way to better monitor a sprawling and confusing network of social programs.

The protest comes at a time when, for political reasons, Quinn needs to demonstrate that she is willing and able to stand up to the mayor.

This is really what it is all about, because ultimately she is going to want to be re-elected and the groundswell across the city and in her district has developed into at least two challengers thusfar to oust her. I'll credit her for talking tough in this video by Azi but when it comes to her vote, she's weaker than the Mets ability to come through at the end of the season.

CUNY Gives Top Boss $55K Raise With Budget Cuts Looming

It must be nice to be Matthew Goldstein. In case you don't know, he is the Chancellor of the City University of New York, that includes dozens of schools across the city such as Baruch, Hunter, John Jay and City College among others. The budget crunch in our state is looking horrific and cuts have been promised across the board and CUNY has no special protection from the axe Paterson and the Legislature wield. So how does the board over there respond?

From The NY Post:

Chancellor Mathew Goldstein's raise puts his annual base salary at $450,000 - plus more than $100,000 for a housing allowance and other perks.

At 7 percent over each of the last two years, Goldstein's boost was just slightly above the 5 to 6 percent raises for vice chancellors, whose salaries were all pushed above $200,000.

"It's twice as high as the raise for the faculty," Barbara Bowen, president of the teachers union at CUNY, said of the chancellor's raise. "The faculty and staff at CUNY . . . are shocked by a salary of $450,000 when the university is facing the prospect of further budget cuts."

CUNY claims they are just doing what they are doing is perfectly fine and within the norms, but this is no normal time. If anyone gets a hefty raise, it should be the teachers, not someone that already got close to half a million a year in cash and prizes. With daunting cuts coming down the pike, this should be a time of frugality and wise spending choices by the educational megalith. Goldstein is aware that CUNY must make cuts of nearly $6 million this year and $9.5 million in the next. So while he is "closely monitoring its financial situation" at the helm, he'll be doing it with a nice cushion on top of his already well-funded salary.

Paterson Wants Another $2 Billion Cut Off The Budget

The first time around Albany went into special session we saw nearly half a billion dollars in budget cuts. Now that everyone is screaming in horror at the crisis on Wall Street and paper assets are being wiped out left and right, Governor Paterson is back at it with his budgetary axe. This time around a mere half a billion isn't enough, now we are looking at two...billion....dollars!

From The NY Times:

In a meeting with legislative leaders that was at times remarkably testy for what are often scripted affairs, the governor said he would call the Legislature back to Albany — but not until after the election — to reopen the state budget. The governor and lawmakers agreed during a session in August to cut $427 million from this year’s budget, but recent turmoil on Wall Street has opened an additional $1.2 billion hole, and the numbers are expected to worsen.

While Mr. Paterson and legislative leaders have warned that the Wall Street crisis would have a magnified impact on New York, the extent of the damage is only beginning to emerge.

Preliminary tax receipts released this week by the state comptroller’s office showed that revenue in September from sales, business and other taxes declined by about 7 percent, or $154 million, compared with September 2007.

Tax receipts are expected to get worse, Mr. Paterson said. Tax revenue from Wall Street bonuses, expected to be down sharply this year, will not be counted until early next year.

Not only that, but our financial rating could be downgraded and borrowing costs could rise. Of course that is terrible news for the state of our state's economy and I'm not knocking the seriousness of this at all. What I am knocking is the ridiculousness of the situation on the state level when compared to what is going on 250 miles to our southwest in Washington, D.C.

How is it that New York, being in the center of this crisis (you know, Wall Street is in Manhattan and not a magical mythical place that politicians can crusade against from afar) is expected to weather this financial storm with no help from the Federal government. Congress just gave the wealthy bastards who screwed everything up $700 billion and our state gets jack shit. How is that fair? Can someone tell me, because I'm obviously out of the loop.

Oh wait, will this "trickle-down" to the rest of us? Is that the plan, because if it is....if this is another endorsement of the failed policies that originated with Reagan and his neo-con nut brigade, I'm gonna explode.

Bloomberg Follows Paterson With Budget Cuts

With Wall Street's internally-created disaster rampaging the economy, New York and NYC in particular are feeling the effects on multiple levels. Governor Paterson went ahead this summer (and probably next month as well) to cut the state budget by $427 million with more cuts to come. Now Bloomberg is following up with cutbacks of his own and putting taking away last year's property tax cut as well.

From The NY Times:

With an eye on Wall Street’s turmoil and New York City’s fragile economy, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ordered city agencies on Tuesday to cut spending by about $500 million this year and $1 billion next year.

The cuts are to be made across the board, affecting agencies including the Police Department, which must cut costs by $95 million this year, and the school system, which needs to trim $185 million.

Over all, the reductions represent 2.5 percent of the agencies’ budgets this year and 5 percent next year.

The midyear budget cuts are intended to provide a financial cushion should the city’s tax revenue, which is heavily dependent on Wall Street’s profits, drop further, as many expect.

"Across the board" is exactly the way it sounds. Education, Fire, Parks, Homeless Services and DoT are all expected to significantly reduce costs for this year and next. Of course, as the Times and everyone else is well aware of, next year is also a city-wide election and those cuts Bloomberg desires might not be as easy as they have been for him before. That is especially so if he gets his way and has term-limits extended, then he'll be running for re-election as well.