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This belongs to you. Take it back...
Budget 
Thu Mar 31, 2011 at 14:51:19 PM EDT
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Really excellent video of the amazing rally that went down in Albany last night from the folks at Keep Albany Boring.
What democracy looks like from Patrick Dodson on Vimeo.
I'll have more about this later, but for now, send this to everyone you know.
Also, follow the #WeAreNY hashtag on twitter.
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Wed Mar 30, 2011 at 12:07:46 PM EDT
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Maybe this is why the State Police feel they need tasers:
You, friend, are not invited.
Kinda says it all, no?
Image via CapCon
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Tue Mar 29, 2011 at 13:18:55 PM EDT
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So here's some details about the camp in at the capitol tomorrow courtesy of our friends at the Alliance for Quality Education:
WHAT: Hundreds of New Yorkers, unhappy with the budget agreement presented to the Legislature will protest at the Capitol on Wednesday. The groups, representing a broad coalition, will being camping-in all night at the Capitol to bear witness to the votes on this painful budget that includes huge cuts for children, families, seniors, schools and communities combined with a $4.6 billion tax cut for the wealthiest three percent of New Yorkers. The budget also fails to proactively renew and strengthen the rent laws, a sign that the State Legislature is more concerned with pandering to real estate interests than protecting the millions of New Yorkers who depend on these laws to stay in their homes.
WHO: Alliance for Quality Education, Citizen Action of New York, New York City Coalition for Educational Justice, Long Island Progressive Coalition, Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change, VOCAL, PUSH-Buffalo, Right to the City New York, Real Rent Reform New York, Community Voices Heard, New Deal for New York, The Save Our SUNY Coalition, Strong Economy for All, Growing Together New York Coalition, VOICE Buffalo.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 30th
1:30 P.M. Impact on rent and job creation - 2nd floor outside of Governor's office
2:00 P.M. Impact on K-12 Education - 4th floor outside of Senate gallery chamber
3:00 P.M. Impact on SUNY and CUNY - Million Dollar Staircase 3rd floor
5:00 P.M., 5:30 P.M., 6:00 P.M. - Live press availability on all the issues. Million Dollar Staircase 3rd floor
7:00 P.M.(Wednesday) - 7:00 A.M. (Thursday) Ongoing press availability
Thursday, March 31st
10:00 A.M. Press availability on all the issues. Million Dollar Staircase 3rd floor
WHERE: New York State Capitol, Albany, NY
VISUAL: Hundreds of New Yorkers. Signs. Chanting. Folk Songs. Marshmallows.
Who's in? Also, anyone know of orgs organizing busses or rideshares to Albany tomorrow?
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Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 16:01:26 PM EDT
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Excellent piece on the budget from New York Communities for Change's Greg Basta:
New York's Wisconsin Moment?
The assault on the working class packaged as "fiscal responsibility" by the likes of Scott Walker has gone viral. Since Wisconsin, this tactic - force hard working Americans to accept the notion of "austerity", while giving corporations and millionaires tax breaks - has reared its ugly head in Ohio, Indiana, and Florida. This week, the virus has found a new host - New York.
Over the weekend, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and GOP Senate leadership agreed on a plan to slash the State Budget by billions of dollars - including hundreds of millions in cuts to public school funding and to State and City universities, millions more in cuts to homeless services and senior centers. In addition, the State will allow the Millionaires' Tax to expire, and will not strengthen laws protecting rent regulation for residents of New York City. All of this is being justified by lawmakers as necessary measures to close the State's deficit. So let's look at the numbers:
Total money being cut from the budget? About $3 billion.
Total tax revenue NY will be losing by letting the millionaire's tax expire? $4.6 billion.
Much like in Wisconsin, New Yorkers are being told that it's our responsibility to make sacrifices in these harsh economic times. This budget will force that issue - thousands of teachers could be laid off, tuition hikes loom for students at public universities, medical services for groups that need it the most - like senior citizens, the homeless, and those with HIV/AIDS, could become very scarce. But the wealthiest 3% of New Yorkers are being told, "You deserve a break. Thanks for all that you do!" So in essence, many of the Wall Street execs who played a major part in triggering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression will be rewarded, while the families hardest hit by this crisis are being punished.
And like in Wisconsin, New Yorkers will not take this sitting down. A coalition called Strong Economy for All is bringing together education groups, labor unions, tenants' rights organizations, homeless advocates, and senior citizens to demand that Cuomo scraps this plan. This Wednesday, thousands of New Yorkers will join the coalition from throughout the state to tell lawmakers in Albany that their job needs to be fighting for good jobs, decent wages, a quality education, and healthcare for all New Yorkers. They've protected Wall Street long enough. Governor - tax the rich. They got us into this mess, they need to do their fair share to get us out of it. Don't put this on the backs of the children, seniors, homeless, tenants, and teachers of New York. We've been shouldering the burden for quite some time.
In New York, as in Wisconsin (and Ohio, and Indiana) the buzz word among the pro-Wall Street side has been "austerity". Austerity for who? New York is one of the wealthiest states in one of the richest countries on the planet. How can millionaires and elected officials talk to us about austerity while keeping a straight face? Corporations like JP Morgan Chase pay only 11% of the State income taxes to which they're obligated. And those of us who make New York run on a daily basis are told we have to accept austerity? No, we will not accept that. We have not tax loopholes, we received no bailouts. Our State electeds need to preach austerity to the Wall Street side, and protect the services and programs on which working families rely for stability.
We're asking all New Yorkers to get their voices heard. We know you want to - roughly 80% of New Yorkers support the millionaire's tax. You deserve better. To sign a petition to Governor Cuomo, and to RSVP to our rally this Wednesday, March 30th, click here (Go to a college in New York State? Click here to find out what student groups are doing on your campus).
For more info on the campaign, watch our action at the Capitol last week.
UPDATE: Seems the site at the above linked is getting hammered right now, so I've taken the liberty of posting the entire piece. Hope Mr Basta does not mind.
And speaking of Strong For All, my former colleague Mike Kink says it well and succinctly:
In the give and take of the budget, it's now clear that wealthy New Yorkers are doing all the taking while middle-class and poor New Yorkers are doing all the giving. This budget will make our state's already frightening levels of income inequality even worse.
Also, Liz has some more on what's shaping up for Wednesday at the capitol:
Capitol Occupation?
Maybe Wisconsin really can come to New York.
A reader forwarded an alert sent out yesterday about an "Albany occupation" planned for this Wednesday in opposition to what's being billed as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed budget.
The "peaceful" protest will include New York Communities for Change (formerly ACORN), Right to the City, SUNY student groups and others, according to the e-mail, which continues:
"They expect at least 1,000 to participate in the occupation during the day on Wednesday and at least 500 to stay in the capital (sic) overnight."
"FYI, as long as the legislature is in session, anyone has the right to be in the capital, even to protest inside it (although not in the Senate and Assembly chambers themselves). The organizers have notified the police of their intentions and no arrests are expected."
"The situation will be very fluid, however, and the occupiers on the ground will be the ones who ultimately decide how long to continue the occupation and what course of action to take, although precautions will be taken at all times to avoid anyone being exposed to arrest who doesn't want to be."
"This is a very important action that I think we should support as strongly as possible. Please forward this to any and all activist listservs you are on. As Cuomo is currently preparing to bulldoze his way to an on-time, incredibly anti-working class budget, we need to make sure that our voices are heard. If you'd like to participate, get in touch with the organizers listed in the announcement below. Thanks!"
This is reminiscent of the so-called "week of rage" that occurred during the Wisonsin budget battle, when protestors refused to leave the building and the courts ultimately got involved.
And, by the way, do keep in mind that the Governor and Skelos' crew are axing the extension of the so called Millionaire's Tax, even though a new Siena poll showing that a whopping 71% of New Yorker's favor that extension. That includes the support of 67% of Indys and 54 % of Republicans.
So, Cuomo and Skelos are basically telling New Yorkers that not only do they not care what they think, but that they are going to take out on their kids and the elderly and the poor and working classes.
Which leaves one question. What are we going to do about it, New York?
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Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 04:14:29 AM EDT
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Ladies and gentlemen,
I voted for Andrew Cuomo last November, I voted for him, I rooted for him, and I did everything I though could reasonably help his campaign. I didn't extensively fundraise for him (although I wish I had) nor did I canvass for him beyond the bare minimum, being occupied with the failed State Senate campaign in my district. But nonetheless, I fully supported him.
And not out of simple party loyalty, or herd behavior--my county went for Carl Paladino (shudder) by an almost two to one margin. Nor did I vote for Cuomo due to the fact that Carl Paladino was an absolute lunatic, even though I know things which would appall you about dear old Carl that are not public information and probably never will be. Nor did I vote for Cuomo because I believe him to be the ideal man, governor, or political candidate. I've been involved in politics long enough to know that there is no such thing for any of the above.
No, I voted for Andrew Cuomo because I firmly believe that he represents the best chance that this state has within the next ten or twenty years of climbing out of the cesspool that we're in of corruption and incompetence.
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Sat Mar 05, 2011 at 11:46:33 AM EST
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There's a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don't like, and by extension, the clients of that program...and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.
They're going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to "lower the deficit", or words similar...but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well-because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of "treat 'em like their cars were impounded" to every interaction customers have with the system.
And what better way to make sure that happens...then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol' Social Security office?
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Wed Dec 08, 2010 at 09:05:38 AM EST
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It grows more and more painfully clear that legislators go to Albany not to run a government, but to manage New York's most critical industry: horse-racing and associated wagering.
At a time when the state's finances look dire, the legislature seems far more obsessed with bailout proposals for New York City's Off-Track Betting, just as they did with NYRA and a wide variety of similar high-profile racing issues.
I think back to Joe Bruno's horse-breeding deals, to the complete disaster around racinos at Aqueduct, and decades of similar nonsense.
I like watching horse races - a company I worked for used to take its annual picnic at Belmont. I do not, however, think our legislature should be spending its time dreaming about the track.
Instead of withholding legislator salaries until the budget is done, here's a different proposal. If the budget isn't complete by May 1st, all horse-racing tracks and their associated businesses (including OTB) will stay closed for the year.
Sorry, Triple Crown, sorry Saratoga, and sorry everyone else this might affect. New York State's addiction to the track needs to end.
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Wed Aug 04, 2010 at 00:12:51 AM EDT
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The budget has finally been passed. Now prisoners will no longer be used to prop up false Republican majorities:
Lawmakers also passed a controversial measure requiring that prisoners be counted as residents not of the mostly upstate prisons where they reside, but of the areas where they lived before they were incarcerated. This effort had been fiercely resisted by Republicans, because of the implications the move could have as legislative districts are redrawn by the Legislature.
Democrats had championed the measure. "This is an issue of fundamental fairness, and it will empower poor communities because their population will reflect those prisoners," said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat running for attorney general. "If other states follow us, it would represent a major shift of political power back to these poor urban communities."
This is a huge shift. For decades, mostly residents of poorer communities in the city were imprisoned in upstate Republican districts, but without the power to vote. This enabled the GOP to ensure demographic change was not registered at the ballot box and maintain a false majority in the State Senate.
That system is now no longer. This is why we want a Democratic-controlled State Senate.
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Fri Jul 02, 2010 at 02:08:32 AM EDT
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For a lot of us, the budget debacle is mostly just another reason to weep when we contemplate being citizens of the state of New York.
But if you're a state employee--particularly a teacher--it's a reason to be terrified for your job. I have one friend who's a teacher who has already been laid off once this year thanks to the budget, only to have her funding restored basically the next day and her job saved.
Given the fact that most people are probably concerned with whether or not their kids' teachers are going to be let go and their schools be left unable to pay for programs, it seems quite... well, asinine, that a New York State Senator would casually dismiss the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in school funding.
Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), who faces a well-funded challenger in Democrat Regina Calcaterra, said most school districts had already made budgets without the school aid restoration and may not feel much pain if it's not restored. Still, he said, 'I haven't even contemplated a veto override yet.
Via Newsday.
Good thing there's an alternative:
"The budget passed by the state Legislature is nothing to celebrate, as Albany's lifetime insiders finally reached the end of their budget gimmicks and fiscal chicanery," Calcaterra said. "However, a failure to vote to override Gov. Paterson's veto would visit even more suffering, still, on the people and school districts of Eastern Long Island. Sen. LaValle says most school districts may not feel much pain if this important funding is not restored. Try telling that to the overtaxed, overburdened, out-of-work residents in our neighborhoods and communities from Port Jefferson to Mastic to Montauk.
"During the past 20 years alone of Ken LaValle's 34 years in Albany, Suffolk County property taxes have risen by more than 550 percent. That's too much pain already," Calcaterra said.
Regina Calcaterra for SD-1
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Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 00:54:51 AM EDT
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New York City Council Members Brad Lander and Melissa Mark-Viverito have an op-ed in the Gotham Gazette calling for two new high-income tax brackets in order to mitigate large budget cuts:
We propose adding two additional tax brackets for high-income earners -- one for joint-filers earning income over $250,000 (to be taxed at 1.2 percent) and another for those earning income over $500,000 (to be taxed at 1.8 percent). For a household earning $500,000, this would mean just $1,000 more per year. By putting these reforms in place, the city can generate over $1 billion in new revenues, while reducing the tax burden on families earning under $40,000 (who are already exempt from federal taxes).
Personally, I think there should be another bracket for people who earn a million a year, but that's not the main point. While an added billion per year will not completely close the budget gap and will still require budget cutting but it would make things that much better. Even though Bloomberg is opposed to this, the Democrats in the Council have a super-majority and should use that leverage to push for some version of a more progressive income tax.
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Mon Jun 14, 2010 at 20:05:21 PM EDT
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I just watched as the Senate voted 34-27 to accept the budget extender bill and keep state workers on the job, etc. It was a bit ominous-- as Ruben Diaz was, again, wielding a lot of power. He voted against the extender bill; luckily, 3 Republicans (Farley, Fuschillo, McDonald) voted yes.
Now, tell me, what does that mean, exactly, for important bills hanging, like the hydrofracking moratorium? What will happen if there is still no budget next week?
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Tue Apr 20, 2010 at 13:30:33 PM EDT
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Enforcement actions are influencing relative clout in some important parts of the Albany equation, as we still await a state budget deal.
Paterson spent 3 hours with his criminal defense lawyer and is admitting that an Inspector General interviewed him about the Aqueduct racing deal (as well as his ballgame ticket troubles).
AG Cuomo has just charged Espada with looting a nonprofit in the Bronx. And, some think that his Uncle John is an illegal staffer under the current ethics rules.
The wheels of justice move slowly. We need a budget yesterday. Sigh. Albany.
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Wed Mar 31, 2010 at 11:33:29 AM EDT
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You really have to wonder sometimes if these people are all just creating material for some particularly tragic sitcom. Or maybe, more accurately, a reality show: Dancing with Imbeciles.
NYT: Paterson Delays School Aid, Citing State's Lack of Money:
ALBANY - Gov. David A. Paterson ordered the delay of $2.1 billion in aid payments to local school districts on Tuesday, saying the state did not have enough cash to pay bills and still end the fiscal year with its budget balanced. [...]
The delayed payments include about $924 million in aid for New York City schools.
New York Daily News: Dysfunctional state government dooms chances for Race to the Top education dollars in near future
ALBANY - New York is unlikely to improve its bid for Race to the Top dollars anytime soon - because state lawmakers have already won their own race to the bottom.
New York's notoriously dysfunctional state government is made more so by looming elections and a politically weak Gov. Paterson, all but dooming New York's chance of winning a next round for the critical education dollars, Albany watchers say.[...]
The state on Monday failed to win a $700 million pot of educational gold from the Obama administration, setting off a new round of all-too-familiar finger-pointing in the state capital.
So not only is the State of New York not going to have a budget by the statutory deadline of tomorrow, that budget is going to look $700 million worse because our government is apparently entirely staffed by morons.
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Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 14:36:11 PM EST
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They say that when sausage is made, it sometimes smells in the kitchen. Albany government never passes the smell test (that's why the Capitol is in such a windy spot...), but, at budget season, it gets worse.
Which is why Lt. Gov. Ravitch's Five Year Plan to Address the NYS Budget Deficit is such a welcome breath of fresh air, even if it does admit we will have to borrow this year.
Lawmakers' reactions, of course, focus on what the plan means for this year's budget, and whether we can borrow to close the giant gap. Ravitch's report, on the other hand, focuses on changing the rules to take some of the shenanigans out of the process, and put some relative adults (an independent Financial Review Board) in charge of reporting actual-factual facts about the State we are in....
To me, if our sorry excuse for a state government were to, through a series of personal foibles on the part of Executives, fall into the hands of a technocrat with more faith in accountants than politicians.... that would be an excellent thing. Go read the whole thing.
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Sat Feb 27, 2010 at 18:56:51 PM EST
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In last Sunday's Times-Union, Fred LeBrun discussed the bad news about park closures.
The fine print says this list "assumes $4 million in park and historic site fee increases that will be identified at a later date, and the use of $5 million in funds from the Environmental Protection Fund. ..."
What this means is that the current list of closures is a preliminary one. It assumes money will be available that right now isn't available. That means that the closure list could grow. As I pointed out in an earlier diary, that's not the entire story. The Department of Environmental Conservation runs a system that would be called a major park system in any other state. The division that operates and maintains that system is slated for an 18% budget cut, and will have 80% of the slated personnel cuts for the Department.
Not only is the parks situation worse than you may have thought, there's a chance it could be even worse. Even though some parks may be saved, the overall picture for state parks still does not look good. The future for many of them is a bleak one.
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Wed Feb 17, 2010 at 17:53:59 PM EST
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As our Legislature continues its President's Week vacation as an a matter of right, and as our Governor announces he'll seek election in his own right, I found myself loathing to discover a perfect reason for not casting my ballot for any of them.
It appears that in order to "save money," Governor Paterson has, behind closed doors, slated a slew of State Parks for closure. Not to diminish the effects of these proposed shut-downs across the state, but rather to illustrate how each closure affects each individual New Yorker, one of these knifings stabbed right at my heart. Albany Times Union columnist Fred LeBrun brought this to my attention this past Sunday in a piece entitled State Parks Make Hit List:
Two lists of possible state park and historic site closures made necessary by Gov. David Paterson's proposed 2010-11 state budget finally have been prepared by senior staff at the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the governor's office.
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Say goodbye to the venerable John Boyd Thacher State Park in the Helderbergs, for example, as bizarre as that sounds. At this point, it will take extraordinary measures to save it. Once closed, who knows when it reopens?
Emphasis by me -SP
For more on how this hits home for me personally - and therefore, how this is important to everyone in our State - click "There's more..."
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Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 11:07:17 AM EST
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And a very Happy Valentine 's Day to all you lovers out there. That's lovers of things like music and politics and words and such. See, I tend to feel like Good Ol' Charlie Brown these past few Valentine's Days. I've been too focused on things like writing and thinking and looking for work to actually work up the courage to ask for a date...not that I could pay the tab, anyway!
Then again, whose fault is it for me not "having" a Valentine? It's all me, of course! I'm the one walking about labeling or not labeling other people with the same title we'd give a piece of mail. So I realized earlier this week that I certainly did have a Valentine and, better yet, I'd been getting ephemera from her every week for the past two years!
This is just a fancy way of saying I have a subscription to Newsweek as gifted to me by my dear old Grandmother.
Pitiful, right? I don't think so. I do love that magazine. Every week, I take a break from the job hunting and freelancing to enjoy that what I might be purchasing for myself: the best political commentary, interviews, and journalism on shiny paper with a dab of humor and art criticism. If I had the time, I'd praise or rebut everything in it.
Which brings me to the current February 15, 2010 issue. Set aside the fact that the issue is dated one whole day in the future (I never quite understood this trick) but within the magazine's pages were a couple of conflicting articles that could really do for a kiss-and-make-up this Valentine's Day. So below the fold, we'll try to get that done for them, considering they have less than 24 hours to come to terms with yourselves.
Wait...yourselves?
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Fri Feb 05, 2010 at 07:43:44 AM EST
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The Glens Falls Post-Star has a story about state parks facing cut-backs.
Gov. David Paterson's proposed state budget calls for $29 million in spending cuts at New York's 35 historic sites and 135 state parks, including Moreau Lake State Park and Saratoga Spa State Park in Saratoga Springs.
This is just the latest in a series of cuts. Over the past 18 months, the parks budget has been cut by 40%. In addition to the cuts to the Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historical Preservation (OPRHP), the Department of Environmental Conservation is also looking at more cuts.
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Tue Jun 16, 2009 at 00:06:30 AM EDT
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I don't know if you've been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.
For reasons that we won't go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities...and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the "menu" of services (the facility's term) that can be purchased at this particular location.
If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future...or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself...this conversation will surely matter.
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Mon Apr 20, 2009 at 12:17:46 PM EDT
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Phillip discussed Governor Paterson's dismal poll numbers earlier today and there is one part of this poll that I found very intriguing:
It appears that Paterson's decision to sacrifice transparency in favor of a timely budget backfired. When presented with 10 potential factors for the Governor's declining popularity and more than half of voters say that his handling of the state's finances, giving raises to his staff and negotiating the budget in secret were factors that greatly contributed to his falling approval ratings.
Sixty-three percent of voters said that the secrecy of the budget proceeding "contributed greatly" to his declining popularity, while another 24 percent said it "somewhat contributed."
It appears that at long last, transparency and budget reform has become a salient issue for votors. It's not clear why this is suddenly becoming an issue because after all, Paterson is not the first Governor to conduct budget negotiations in secret, not by a long shot. But perhaps there is a voter backlash developing because for decades in the Senate minority and during his brief stint as Lieutenant Governor, Paterson was a harsh critic of the secret budget process.
Simply put, Paterson's reputation may have led voters to believe and hope he would change things in Albany and by turning all three branches of state government over to the Democrats last fall, voters were actually expecting change. And so far it's not an understatement to say those hopes been tragically unfulfilled.
I do not think this bodes well for the 2010 elections. The GOP are of course, no better. The whole dismal state that is Albany was largely the fault of Joe Bruno and Dean Skelos for the time they were in power, and giving the Senate back to the GOP will not make anything more transparent. But as Paterson's own career illuminates, the out-of-power call for reform can be a compelling political message.
So now, if not for the ethical and democratic reasons, at least that the voters are paying attention, I think it's time to shape up before we get shipped out.
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