How tax dodging General Electric threw a community to the wolves

General Electric spent decades polluting the Hudson River that runs through the twin villages of Hudson Falls and Fort Edward, NY. Then GE spent decades and lots of money fighting attempts to make them clean up the mess it made in the river. Then it closed the plants in both villages dealing a gargantuan blow to the local economy and to those who want to work for a living. It claims the Fort Edward plant is “uncompetitive.” It rejected the union’s offer of job givebacks and modernization. It was also reported that the factory’s equipment dates from the 1940s.

This is a bit shocking. You'd think that since GE pays no income taxes, they would have more money to invest in proper equipment.

 

Call me crazy, but is it a possibility that the factory wasn’t uncompetitive because of its workers, but because GE saddled those employees with 70 year old equipment?

 

Emperor Andrew and his new clothes

North Country Public Radio's In Box blog did a piece entitled 'Voters slap down four school budgets that bust prop[erty] tax cap.' That title is misleading because in at least one of them, the budget was approved by a majority of voters, but not the arbitrary 60% required under the new law for any proposed increase above the artificial tax cap (generally seen as 2% but other factors can make it vary).

This has been a pet peeve of mine. School budgets are the only taxes people get to vote on, at least in New York. As the only tax approved by direct democracy, imposing an arbitrary supermajority requirement seems particularly unfair.

But the real problem is how Governor Andrew Cuomo has shamefully broken his promise twin the tax cap with much needed mandate relief for schools, counties and municipalities.So basically he's told these entities: we're going to micromanage everything you have to do but we're going to make it as difficult as possible to raise enough revenue to do all those things we impose on you without your consent.

I suggest a different kind of cap. If the state mandated part of a school district's budget rises by more than 2% - the part that Albany has total control of and the districts zero - then the state should pay the difference. This might make Albany think a little more carefully before imposing every mandate under the sun. A little accountability would be nice.

But this is Albany. If there were any accountability in the place, Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver would be out on his can for *repeatedly* aiding and abetting sexual predators, using our tax money to do so. So localities shouldn't expect a fair shake anytime soon.

Cuomo is big on lecturing lower levels of government. He wags his finger at others on how all they have to do is make 'tough decisions' and things will be hunky dory... even though a huge number of the decisions are imposed on them by Cuomo himself and his minions. A typical county budget in New York has 80-90% of its expenses mandated by the state; its actual flexibility is minimal.

But Emperor Andrew's real sham is the elaborate shell games he likes to play precisely so he himself can avoid making tough decisions. The vaunted tax cap is a great example. He didn't do a darn thing. This doesn't require him to make a single tough decision. The law just tells other people what to do, people who had nothing to do with passing the law, and makes them pick up the pieces.

The law ties the hands of lower levels of government so Cuomo can puff his chest and say "I kept taxes in check"... while avoiding having the make the tough decisions involved with paring down mandates. The mandate part, he passed of to some commission years ago and we've heard virtually nothing since.

This way, the counties, municipalities and school districts who will take the heat for laying off staff and cutting programs while Emperor Andrew keeps himself above the fray and pontificates on tough decisions... the kind he's too gutless to make himself.

Cuomo is a master at doing nothing, passing the buck and portraying it as progress. His latest shell game has to do with tax-free zones, similar to the discredited Empire Zone scam. The idea is that if new businesses set up in towns with a state university campus, they can get tax-free status for up to a decade.

Emperor Andrew is a very smart politician. He proposes things like this and the tax cap which sound great, so long as you don't look to carefully at some... something which he's counting on most people not done.

But for the tax-free zone plan, more than likely, taxes will actually INCREASE for most people in those places.

These new businesses will be apparently exempt from property taxes. Yet they will still be using the same public services like roads, snow removal and fire and police protection. The total cost of public services will remain the same, but with fewer property taxpayers (because of all the exemptions) to share that burden, those who actually are paying taxes will pay more.

The only way this could be avoided is for Albany to reimburse localities for the revenue lost from these tax-exempt businesses.

And that's about as likely to happen as a wave of honesty and good governance to break out in the Capitol.

Run North Country schools like a business... and police and prisons too!

"When I give food to the poor, I'm called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I'm called a communist." -Archbishop Dom Helder Camara.

At North Country Public Radio's In Box blog, reporter Brian Mann wonders if we are 'cutting our North Country schools to death?'

Predictably, it provoked comments of relief that schools are finally being run like businesses. A bit of a dubious claim, since schools are being suffocated by unfunded mandates from Albany and Washington far greater than businesses... to say nothing of the fact that the right to a public education is enumerated in the state constitution.

But while the idea that public services should be run identically to businesses strikes some as absurd, but I say let’s expand it beyond schools!

 If a sheriff’s department is short of cash, let them give out more tickets; I’m sure there’s some rarely enforced statute about covering your mouth when you sneeze that could bring in more revenue.

 If the corrections [sic] service has trouble meeting payroll, just release some prisoners. That’ll help them live within their means. Maybe police and fire departments should close at 5:00 or 9:00 pm, just like a regular business.

If you get robbed or your house burns down overnight, oh well just call in the morning. Maybe these men and women in uniform don’t need the 'luxury' of health care. That’d slash expenses significantly.

Maybe EMTs should make you pre-pay before splinting your broken leg, just like gas stations make you pre-pay.

Public services run exactly like businesses? Great idea! I’m sure you folks can come up with some more such innovations.

More on Cuomo's cowardly tax cap

I guess I'm not the only one who says Governor Andrew Cuomo's property tax cap is cowardly. Even conservative town leaders in conservative upstate agree.

Cuomo's cowardly tax cap

I was reading an article in the Adirondack Journal on the cowardly, undemocratic property tax cap pushed through by NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

It's undemocratic because school budgets are voted upon by residents so the grand pooh-bah is saying that the unwashed masses are too stupid to be trusted with running their own affairs without conditions from the overlords; now school tax increases above 2% are invalid unless approved by a supermajority of the peons.

It's cowardly because he's imposing legal restrictions on how OTHER government bodies spend money, but not on the one he himself runs. Further, he's taking credit for the lower property tax but washes his hands of any anger at the accompanying cuts in services. Tell other people what to do. Don't tell them how to do but tie their hands (see below). That's cowardice.

But the biggest problem with Cuomo's cowardly property tax cap was summed up quite nicely in the Adirondack Journal piece.

Keene town supervisor William Ferebee, a Republican, stated: "I’m opposed to the cap. If there was a cap on state mandates, that would be a different story."

And the Keene supervisor had his comment before his town was devastated by Tropical Storm Irene.

The Minerva supervisor [Sue Corey] said she thought the idea of managing costs was a good one, but living with a cap without mandate relief is "going to be tough."

Lake George Mayor Robert Blais, another Republican, said he was opposed to the tax cap so long as it was not balanced with mandate relief.

Sensing a trend?

Periodic Twitter update

Note: This is a series highlighting selected stories from the Twitter feeds for my blogs Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian and Black Star Journal. The Twitter feed contains not only links to original pieces from my blogs but also links ("re-tweets") to diverse stories from other media outlets. 129 people presently get their updates this way. Those interested are encouraged to subscribe the Twitter feed to get all stories by going to Twitter.com/mofycbsj and clicking 'follow'.



-Poll: [NYS] Voters Say No To Raises, Yes To Taxing Rich (The Journal News)

-EU to sanction Cote d'Ivoire (al-Jazeera)

-How Glenn Beck's Twisted Worldview Goads Disturbed People into Acts of Violence (AlterNet)

-Australian Media's Finest Defend Wikileaks [unlike craven American journalists] (The Wakely Foundation)

-TX GOP Official Opposes Jewish House Speaker: Christians ‘Are The People That Do The Best Jobs’ (Think Progress)

-Indoleaks launched [Indonesian answer to WikiLeaks] (Jakarta Globe)

-Rwandan genocide finds release in photos (NPR)

-Julian Assange, like Daniel Ellsberg and Joe Wilson, Feels the Heat (The Progressive)

-Howie Hawkins says the Green campaign continues (GPNYS)

-Phone Companies' $100 Billion Rip-off -- Where Is That Hidden $6 a Month Going in Our Phone Bills? (Alternet)

-Guinea's [President-elect Alpha] Conde plans truth commission on violence (Reuters)

School budget vote day in NYS

Today is the day when voters across New York state get to vote on their local school budgets and for school board members; in most districts, voting is from noon to 9 PM. While some media outlets will tell you to vote solely based on the proposed rate of school tax increase (or decrease), responsible voters should weigh a variety of factors, including the tax levy but also the quality and variety of educational programs.

It's tempting to vote against a school budget to "send a message" about taxes and spending. But in school budgets, you're really only voting on a small percentage of the budget (10% or less typically), the part NOT mandated by the state and federal governments. If defeated, schools will adopt a contingency budget, whose spending and/or taxation levels are often only negligibly less.

So make sure you cast an informed vote and understand the full effects of pulling the yes or no lever.

In praise of America's generous poor

During the last week, the New York state media has gone ga-ga over the case of Tom Golisano. Golisano is a multibillionaire businessman from western NY, who spent an estimated $90 million of his own money in three failed 'third party' runs for governor. Fellow blogger John Warren over at Adirondack Almanack noted with curiosity the orgy of coverage of Golisano, considering the media's usual blackout against smaller party and independent candidates. As Ross Perot supporters remember, the media only pays attention to 'third party' candidates if they're superrich.

Golisano recently announced that he was so disgusted by the recently enacted so-called millionaires' tax that he's moving to Florida. He's been long active in campaign against what he considers NYS' anti-business climate. Yet while Golisano himself is moving to Florida, his payroll processing company is remaining in New York, despite the much denounced 'anti-business' climate.

He said he would remain active in NYS politics, funding anti-tax and anti-spending candidates and groups. A pretty galling and presumptuous position to take for someone who wants to wash his hands of the state.

According to his own numbers, he would pay approximately $5 million a year in NYS taxes on his multibillion dollar income (a tiny fraction of what he spent on his political campaigns to no effect). That's what pushed him over the edge. That's what caused him to launch this PR campaign where the media has given him tons of air time to whine about the oppression he faces.

The state media fell over itself to take pity on the whiny, suffering multizillionaire

This is rather typical.

The convenient narrative is that the rich are worth paying attention to and that the poor are nothing more than welfare-hogging leeches on society who choose not to work because they're lazy. And while the rich have taken a little bit of a PR hit lately, after the AIG and banking scandals, stereotypes about the poor remain.

Not surprisingly, the reality is otherwise.

The most generous Americans are the poor.

America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of wealthier givers does. "The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics that in terms of percentage of income, the poorest fifth of Americans donate TWICE AS MUCH to charitable causes than do the richest fifth of Americans.

They noted that figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.

This, despite the massive tax advantages to charitable giving that the rich are far better positioned to take advantage of.

We must live in bizarroworld where multizillionaires launch a media blitz to whine about a slight tax increase and the poor give away more than they can really afford. But at least there's still some decency in this world, even if the most generous are more likely to be demonized that to get credit.

The legitimacy and incoherence of the mass teabagging parties

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The anti-tax tea parties have received quite a bit of press attention this week. There has been some criticism that teabaggers (snicker) are closely linked to various right wing groups. I've refrained from commenting on the teabagging parties in general. I don't think you have to be a Republican or a libertarian -- two groups that were at loggerheads for most of the reign of the big government George W. Bush -- to question how the government is spending tax money.

I can deal with taxes, when they are used in some way to benefit the public good. I wouldn't object to my taxes going for a more sensible and cost efficient health care system like single payer.

However, I DO object to my taxes going to subsidize a fourth mansion for a Wall St. CEO. I DO object to my taxes being used as corporate welfare for the stockholders of Boeing, Blackwater and other "defense" contractors.

Anti-tax sentiment is associated with the right wing. But probably the most famous tax protester in American history was the pacifist Henry David Thoreau.

I admit to being wary of any movement that has been co-opted by people like former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey. And I am wary of getting too close to any movement that seems so attractive to anti-immigrant bigots, theocrats and to the small-minded who believe the lie (and, worse, are offended by this "fact") that Pres. Obama is a Muslim.

Some of these people were all gung ho about government spending when its focus was subsidizing "defense" contractor greed (who are more financially sympathetic to the GOP). Now they object to it when it focuses more on subsidizing Wall St. greed (who are increasingly more sympathetic to Democrats). I can't take seriously Dick Armey's ramblings on smaller government, given his record as majority leader. Some tarred any criticism of President Bush as unpatriotic treachery that was tantamount to handing a nuclear bomb to bin Laden but now lustily call Obama a fascist/communist/socialist or whatever the epithet of the day is with as much venom as they can muster.

But the truth is that there are many libertarians out there that were just as vocal about spending and taxation during Bush as during Obama. It's just no one was listening at the time. Back then, they were dismissed as loons both by establishment Republicans and mostly ignored by Democrats and the media. Now that the Republicans have been completely swept from power and they are now completely devoid of any ideas, they are suddenly glomming on to the only idea they've had in the last 30 years that hasn't been completely discredited.

The GOP elite used treated Ron Paul and his followers like escaped mental patients. Now, the establishment has stolen their ideas and claimed them as their own.

So while some of the teabaggers aren't exactly the kind of people I'd want to get in bed with politically, it doesn't mean there aren't issues to discuss. It doesn't mean we shouldn't debate how our money is spent.

That said, some of this nonsense isn't something easily glossed over.

Take an excerpt from this piece in The Post-Standard about Syracuse (NY) teabagger Joanne Wilder.

She said she retired on disability from M&T Bank three years ago after undergoing knee replacement and back surgeries. She lives on her Social Security and disability benefits. Last year, she petitioned the bankruptcy court for protection from creditors.

She said she did not have to pay federal income taxes last year because her income was too low.

"I don't want to see this country turn into a welfare, nanny state, where we stand in line for groceries, and we're in welfare lines, and in socialized medicine lines," Wilder said.

So maybe the best spokesperson for personal responsibility is not someone who reneged on her debts.

Maybe the best spokesperson for lower federal income taxes is not someone who doesn't even pay any.

Maybe the best spokesperson against the welfare state is not someone who is entirely dependent on that oldest of welfare state programs Social Security.

And in a nutshell, this embodies the hypocrisy shown by a great many people who claim to be in favor of small government or against the welfare state. I live in one of the most conservative, anti-big government regions of New York State. But the region is also poorly and heavily dependent on PUBLIC sector jobs as teachers and prisons guards.

Teabaggers are pretty vocal around here. So when New York's governor proposed closing two big prisons in the North Country now underutilized because of (gasp!) falling crime (at least the petty kind), you'd think he'd be widely praised in this small government-loving area. In actuality, many of the people who participated in the tea parties were also lobbying to keep the prisons open. The sad part is that many of them don't even realize their incoherence.

There's a serious argument to be made about how our tax money is being spent, but many of the teabaggers have far to little credibility to be the ones making it.

Update: Surprisingly, it turns out the teabagger Ms. Wilder is only the second . Don't let the door hit you on the way out. #1 goes to the folks chanting in favor of Texan secession while waving American flags.