Happy Christmas, merry Chanukah, all!...
In the spirit-- check out these seven articles below:
"Chanukah and Christmas: When Hope Triumphs Over Cynical Realism" by Rabbi Michael Lerner
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/chanukah-christmas-when-h_b_153342.html
"Christmas on the Margins" by Sadhbh Walshe
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/24-3
"Celebrating a Christmas Truce and the Prospect of Peace" by John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/391759/celebrating_a_christmas_truce_and_the_prospect_of_peace?rel=hp_blogs_box
"Hannukah Lights Can Symbolize Non-Violence Too" by Ira Chernus
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/23-2
"Seasonal Forgiveness Has a Limit" by Jonathan Freedland
http://www.truthout.org/122508Z
"The Ghosts of Chanukah Future" by Rabbi Jill Jacobs
http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php?story=20071213175055906 ...
"Going Too Slow on the Environmental Crisis" by Bill McKibben
http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php/20081215114641736
Finally-- check out http://SantaBush.com for video/info on Bush's last-minute blizzard of deregulation; also http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=12896 ;
http://www.propublica.org/special/midnight-regulations ; free impeachment ornament for xmas tree--
http://www.deedeeworks.com/pages/dee-dee-ornament-vertical-green.pdf ...
Happy holidaze, all!...
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
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From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-michael-lerner/chanukah-christmas-when-h_b_153342.html ...
December 24, 2008 | 12:11 PM (EST)
Chanukah and Christmas: When Hope Triumphs Over Cynical Realism
by Rabbi Michael Lerner [see http://www.Tikkun.org for much more]
Christmas and Chanukah share a spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope in a world of darkness, oppression and despair. But whereas Christmas focuses on the birth of a single individual whose life and mission was itself supposed to bring liberation, Chanukah is about a national liberation struggle involving an entire people who seek to remake the world through struggle with an oppressive political and social order: the Greek conquerors (who ruled Judea from the time of Alexander in 325 B.C.E.) and the Hellenistic culture that they sought to impose.
Though the holiday celebrated by lighting candles for 8 nights recalls the victory of the guerrilla struggle led by the Maccabees against the Syrian branch of the Greek empire, and the subsequent rededication (Chanukah in Hebrew) of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E., there was a more difficult struggle which took place (and in some dimensions still rages) within the Jewish people between those who hoped for a triumph of a spiritual vision of the world embedded (as it turned out, quite imperfectly) in the Maccabees and a cynical realism that had become the common sense of the merchants and priests who dominated the more cosmopolitan arena of Jerusalem.
The cynical realists in Judea, among them many of the priests charged with preserving the Temple, argued that Greek power was overwhelming and that it made far greater sense to accommodate to it than to resist. The Greek globalizers promised advances in science and technology that could benefit international trade and enrich the local merchants who sided with them, even though the taxes that accompanied their rule impoverished the Jewish peasants who worked the land and eked out a subsistence living. Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theatre of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
To the Maccabees, the guerrilla band that they assembled to fight the Greek Empire and its Seleucid dynasty in Syria, and to many of the Jewish supporters of that struggle, the issue of Greek militarism, social injustice and oppression were far more salient than the accomplishments of Greek high culture. Whatever might be the value of Athenian democracy, the reality that it exported to the world through Alexander and his successors was oppressive and exploitative.
The "old-time religion" that the Maccabees fought to preserve had revolutionary elements in it that went far beyond the Greeks in articulating a liberatory vision: not only in the somewhat abstract demand to "love your neighbor as yourself," "love the stranger," and pursue justice and peace, but also concretely in Torah prescriptions to abolish all debts every seven years, allow the land to lie fallow every seven years, refrain from all work and activities connected to control over the earth once a week on Sabbath, redistribute the land every fifty years (the Jubilee) back to its original equal distribution.
The identification with the oppressed, enshrined in Judaism in its insistence that Jews were derived from slaves who had been liberated, and in its focus on retelling the story of being oppressed that was central to the Torah, seemed atavistic and naïve to the more educated and enlightened Jewish urban dwellers, who pointed to the reactionary tribal elements of Torah and sided with the Greeks when they declared circumcision and study of Torah illegal and banned the observance of the Sabbath.
The miracle of Chanukah is that so many people were able to resist the overwhelming "reality" imposed by the imperialists and to stay loyal to a vision of a world based on generosity, love of stranger, and loyalty to an invisible God who promised that life could be based on justice and peace. It was these "little guys," the powerless, who sustained a vision of hope that inspired them to fight against overwhelming odds, against the power of technology and science organized in the service of domination, and despite the fact that they were dismissed as terrorists and fundamentalist crazies. When this kind of energy, what religious people call "the Spirit of God," becomes ingredient in the consciousness of ordinary people, miracles ensue.
It is this same radical hope, whether rooted in religion or secularist belief systems, that remains the foundation for all who continue to struggle for a world of peace and social justice at a time when the champions of war and injustice dominate the political and economic institutions of our own society, often with the assistance of their contemporary cheerleading religious leaders. It is that radical hope that is celebrated this Chanukah by those Jews who have not yet joined the contemporary Hellenists.
Radical hope is also the message of Christmas. Like Chanukah, it is rooted in the ancient tradition of a winter solstice celebration to affirm humanity's belief that the days, now grown shortest around December 23rd, will grow long again as the sun returns to heat the earth and nourish the plants. Just as Jews light holiday lights at this time of year, so Christians transform the dark into a holiday of lights, with beautiful Christmas trees adorned with candles or electric lights, and lights on the outside and inside of their homes.
Christianity took the hope of the ancients and transformed it into a hope for the transformation of a world of oppression. The birth of a newborn, always a signal of hope for the family in which it was born, was transformed into the birth of the messiah who would come to challenge existing systems of economic and political oppression, and bring a new era of peace on earth, social justice and love. Symbolizing that in the baby Jesus was a beautiful way to celebrate and reaffirm hope in the social darkness that has been imposed on the world by the Roman empire, and all its successors right up through the contemporary dominance of a globalized rule of corporate and media forces that have permeated every corner of the planet with their ethos of selfishness and materialism.
Seeing Jesus as the Son of God, and as an intrinsic part of God, was also a way of giving radical substance to the notion that every human being is created in the image of God. For God to come on earth, bring a holy message of love and salvation, and then to die at the hands of the imperialists and be resurrected to come back at some future date was and is a beautiful message of hope for a world not yet redeemed, and became an inspiration to hundreds of millions who saw in it the comforting message that the rule of the powerful was not the ultimate reality of existence. And yet, using the specificity of one human being and identifying him as God, a move made by St. Paul but not by Jesus himself, did not fit into the framework of Judaism, which could not accept Jesus as messiah either because of its view that the messiah would bring an end to wars and all forms of oppression, an end that had not yet taken place during or after Jesus' death.
Jews and Christians have much in common in celebrating at this time of year. We certainly want to use this holiday season to once again affirm our commitment to end the war in Iraq, to end global poverty and hunger by embracing the Network of Spiritual Progressives' version of the Global Marshall Plan, to reduce carbon emissions and population growth and to save the world from ecological destruction. We live in dark times -- but these holidays help us reaffirm our hope for a fundamentally different reality that we can help bring about in the coming years. And that despite the fact that we must acknowledge that the Chanukah revolution led to the rule of the Jewish Hashmona-im whose rule devolved into tyranny and self-destructiveness, and that the beauty vision of early Christianity devolved into the tyranny and anti-Semitism of Constantinian forms of the merger of religion with state power.
There are reasons to not mush together these separate holidays. The tremendous pressure of the capitalist marketplace has been to take these holidays, eliminate their actual revolutionary messages, and instead turn them into a secular focus whose only command is "Be Happy and Buy." One might have imagined that the current economic meltdown would significantly modify these messages, but that has not yet happened in December, 2008. The huge pressure to be happy and the media's ability to portray others as beaming with joy makes a huge number of people despondent because they actually don't feel that kind of joy, and imagine that they are the only ones who don't, and hence feel terrible about themselves, something they seek to repair by buying, drugging or drinking themselves into happiness. And when that too doesn't work for very long, they become all the more unhappy with themselves or with others. The pressure to buy as a way of showing that you really care about others puts many people into the position of spending more than they have, putting themselves into further debt, and then feeling depressed about that. Still others have no way to buy "enough" on credit, and then their children, saturated by a media specially attuned to the best ways to market to toddlers and everyone older through their teen years, make their parents or others feel inadequate because they have not bought what the media portrays as the standard for what a "normal family" buys for the holidays. Jews, seeking to fit into American society, grabbed onto this path of the holidays "not really being religious but only a time to celebrate," and thus many embraced Christmas in the one way they could -- buying presents for their non-Jewish friends and neighbors and celebrating Christmas as a "non-sectarian, American holiday." But this well-intentioned move to fit into American society only helped the capitalist secularists, and unintentionally further undermined the ability of Christians to hold on to the religious and spiritual intent of their holiday. This is why spiritual progressives of the Christian faith have urged Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives to NOT celebrate the holiday as one undifferentiated "holiday season" but to celebrate them as religious and spiritual holidays and to affirm the specific religious message of each one depending on which fits your particular faith.
Yet we also want to affirm the goodness in what secularists have tried to do with these holidays in removing them from their religious specificity. There has been far too much anger and killing in the name of religions in the history of humanity. We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives do not believe that most of that killing was actually motivated by religious differences so much as by power struggles that were given religious justifications and appearances. And we are all too well aware that in the 20th century over a 150 million people were slaughtered in the name of secular belief systems and secular powers (1st WW, 2nd WW, Korean War, Vietnam War, Stalinist gulag, Maoist gulag, colonial and anti-colonial wars, etc.), so we are not going to buy any notion that says that eliminating religion will increase world peace (though we wouldn't shed any tears if the fundamentalist and ultra-nationalist forms of religion disappeared into the dustbins of history). Many of those who have sought to secularize the holiday season do so from the fear that without that kind of secularization, it will be harder for people to express caring and mutual support if they have to do so through the frameworks of religions of which they are not apart.
Certainly, when it comes to interfaith marriages and families, the need for this kind of smooth path to affirming both traditions is really much needed. And yet, as a Jew, I want to recognize the particular importance to Christians of having Christmas be about Christ, not about gifts and drinking and merry making but about the meaning of the Christ for Christian belief. In this respect, there is a fundamental asymmetry here. Christmas and Easter are the main Christian holidays, while Chanukah is only a minor holiday that has become major only because some (mostly assimilating) Jews in the West felt the need to provide their children with something that could compensate them for not having Christmas with its attractive glitz and lights and toys. But our major holidays are Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and Passover (and of course, weekly Shabbat), and so when Chanukah gets secularized we don't lose as much as Christians do when Christmas is secularized.
As we enter this holiday season, let us stay conscious on all these levels, resist the allure and the seductive charm of the capitalist marketplace and its capacity to reduce all reality and all loving to the consumption of "things," and instead return to the deep spiritual messages of our own traditions, while lovingly supporting each other to stay true to our own deepest truths.
And as we affirm hope, so we must also remind ourselves to not allow our hopes for the Obama presidency to silence our prophetic critique of the powerful should it turn out that those hopes are not realized in the actual policies followed by Obama and his array of establishment-oriented politicians appointed to high offices in his Administration. We can at once celebrate the incredible advance of having white America vote into the presidency a Black man, and yet still insist that this new Administration embrace policies that favor peace and abandon the fantasy that security will come through domination or military victories, that economic and environmental well-being can be consistent with endless "growth" and expansion, or that the quality of human relationships can be improved while living in an economic system that values selfishness, materialism and "looking out for number one." So just as Christmas and Chanukah represent ideals that were quickly distorted by those who tried to make them consistent with the power-structures of a world based on inequality and domination, so too our contemporary victory of the Obama forces can be distorted. Our job is to stay true to the ideals and challenge the distortions, even while celebrating the moments of hope.
Chag urim sameyach--happy holiday of lights.
Chag Chanukah sameyach--happy Chanukah.
Merry Christmas.
Happy Kwanza.
Meaningful Eid.
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From http://www.intent.com/blog/2008/12/19/chanukah-and-christmas-celebrations-radical-hope ...
Chanukah and Christmas: Celebrations of Radical Hope
From: Michael Lerner | Posted: Friday, December 19th, 2008
This is the second in a series of posts by Rabbi Lerner on the significance of Chanukah and Christmas. Please read the first one, The Miracle of Chanukah
The foundation for all who continue to struggle for a world of peace and social justice at a time when the champions of war and injustice dominate the political and economic institutions of our own society, often with the assistance of their contemporary cheerleading religious leaders, is the radical hope held by the less powerful in the face of tyranny -- whether the hope is rooted in religion or secularist belief systems. It is that radical hope that is celebrated this Chanukah by those Jews who have not yet joined the contemporary Hellenists.
Radical hope is also the message of Christmas. Like Chanukah, it is rooted in the ancient tradition of a winter solstice celebration to affirm humanity's belief that the days, now grown shortest around December 23rd, will grow long again as the sun returns to heat the earth and nourish the plants. Just as Jews light holiday lights at this time of year, so do Christians transform the dark into a holiday of lights, with beautiful Christmas trees adorned with candles or electric lights, and lights on the outside and inside of their homes.
Christianity took the hope of the ancients and transformed it into a hope for the transformation of a world of oppression. The birth of a newborn, always a signal of hope for the family in which it was born, was transformed into the birth of the messiah who would come to challenge existing systems of economic and political oppression, and bring a new era of peace on earth, social justice and love. Symbolizing that in the baby Jesus was a beautiful way to celebrate and reaffirm hope in the social darkness that has been imposed on the world by the Roman empire, and all its successors right up through the contemporary dominance of a globalized rule of corporate and media forces that have permeated every corner of the planet with their ethos of selfishness and materialism.
Seeing Jesus as the Son of God, and as an intrinsic part of God, was also a way of giving radical substance to the notion that every human being is created in the image of God. For God to come on earth, bring a holy message of love and salvation, and then to die at the hands of the imperialists and be resurrected to come back at some future date was and is a beautiful message of hope for a world not yet redeemed. The story became an inspiration to hundreds of millions who saw in it the comforting message that the rule of the powerful was not the ultimate reality of existence.
And yet, using the specificity of one human being and identifying him as God, a move made by St. Paul but not by Jesus himself, did not fit into the framework of Judaism, which could not accept Jesus as messiah either because of its view that the messiah would bring an end to wars and all forms of oppression, an end that had not yet taken place during or after Jesus' death.
Jews and Christians have much in common in celebrating at this time of year. We certainly want to use this holiday season to once again affirm our commitment to end the war in Iraq, to end global poverty and hunger by embracing the NSP version of the Global Marshall Plan, and to save the world from ecological destruction. We live in dark times--but these holidays help us reaffirm our hope for a fundamentally different reality that we can help bring about in the coming years.
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From http://www.intent.com/blog/2008/12/18/miracle-chanukah ...
The Miracle of Chanukah
From: Rabbi Michael Lerner | Posted: Thursday, December 18th, 2008
This is the first of a three-part series on Chanukah and Christmas. The subsequent posts will publish over the next two days.
Christmas and Chanukah share a spiritual message: that it is possible to bring light and hope in a world of darkness, oppression and despair. But whereas Christmas focuses on the birth of a single individual whose life and mission was itself supposed to bring liberation, Chanukah is about a national liberation struggle involving an entire people who seek to remake the world through struggle with an oppressive political and social order: the Greek conquerors (who ruled Judea from the time of Alexander in 325 B.C.E.) and the Hellenistic culture that they sought to impose.
Though the holiday celebrated by lighting candles for 8 nights recalls the victory of the guerrilla struggle led by the Maccabees against the Syrian branch of the Greek empire, and the subsequent rededication (Chaunkah in Hebrew) of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E., there was a more difficult struggle which took place (and in some dimensions still rages) within the Jewish people between those who hoped for a triumph of a spiritual vision of the world embedded (as it turned out, quite imperfectly) in the Maccabbees and a cynical realism that had become the common sense of the merchants and priests who dominated the more cosmopolitan arena of Jerusalem.
The cynical realists in Judea, among them many of the priests charged with preserving the Temple, argued that Greek power was overwhelming and that it made far greater sense to adjust to it than to resist. The Greek globalizers promised advances in science and technology that could benefit international trade and enrich the local merchants who sided with them, even though the taxes that accompanied their rule impoverished the Jewish peasants who worked the land and eked out a subsistence living. Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theatre of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
To the Maccabbees, the guerrilla band that they assembled to fight the Greek Empire and its Seleucid dynasty in Syria, and to many of the Jewish supporters of that struggle, the issue of Greek militarism, social injustice and oppression were far more salient than the accomplishments of Greek high culture. Whatever might be the value of Athenian democracy, the reality that it exported to the world through Alexander and his successors was oppressive and exploitative.
The "old-time religion" that the Maccabees fought to preserve had revolutionary elements in it that went far beyond the Greeks in articulating a liberatory vision: not only in the somewhat abstract demand to "love your neighbor as yourself," "love the stranger," and pursue justice and peace, but also concretely in Torah prescriptions to abolish all debts every seven years, allow the land to lie fallow every seven years, refrain from all work and activities connected to control over the earth once a week on Sabbath, redistribute the land every fifty years (the Jubilee) back to its original equal distribution.
The identification with the oppressed, enshrined in Judaism in its insistence that Jews were derived from slaves who had been liberated, and in its focus on retelling the story of being oppressed that was central to the Torah, seemed atavistic and naïve to the more educated and enlightened Jewish urban dwellers, who pointed to the reactionary tribalistic elements of Torah and sided with the Greeks when they declared circumcision and study of Torah illegal and banned the observance of the Sabbath.
The miracle of Chanukah is that so many people were able to resist the overwhelming "reality" imposed by the imperialists and to stay loyal to a vision of a world based on generosity, love of stranger, and loyalty to an invisible God who promised that life could be based on justice and peace. It was these "little guys," the powerless, who managed to sustain a vision of hope that inspired them to fight against overwhelming odds, against the power of technology and science organized in the service of domination, and despite the fact that they were dismissed as terrorists and fundamentalist crazies. When this kind of energy, what religious people call "the Spirit of God," becomes ingredient in the consciousness of ordinary people, miracles ensue.
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From http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/24-3 ...
Published on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Christmas on the Margins
The idea of chief executives being bailed-out while more than 30 million Americans are living on food stamps is unappetizing
by Sadhbh Walshe
I was racing through the supermarket the other day trying to get my Christmas shopping out of the way. I would have been finished in record time had I not been held up at the checkout line because the bozo ahead of me decided to return something. I began to sigh loudly and roll my eyes until I realized that the bozo in question was a young mother obliged to return a pack of chocolate chip cookies she tried to purchase with her food stamps.
I tried not to catch her eye while the cashier recalculated her purchases without the cookies. (Her little boy didn't look too happy.) She was still $1.27 short on her food stamp card, but there didn't seem to be anything else she could spare. She dug into her purse and managed to put together the required sum with dimes and nickels. She smiled at me red-faced as her bags were packed. But I was the one who was more embarrassed.
I had been held up in a similar fashion a few days before in the same supermarket. On that occasion, the perpetrator had to return a bottle of orangeade. Her children were not too happy about it either.
I can't help thinking about what sort of Christmas these women and their families are going to have if a packet of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of orangeade are beyond their reach.
I told a friend that I may end up on food stamps myself next year if I can't write my way out of my own financial quagmire. He was highly amused and said he hoped they had a second tier of food stamps for people who enjoy champagne and caviar.
It turns out you cannot buy champagne on food stamps, or any kind of alcohol for that matter. You can buy orangeade and chocolate chip cookies, though, and if you are really frugal and save up your food stamps for many weeks, you might even be able to afford caviar.
You can buy any kind of food as long as it's not prepared like restaurant food or heated. The snag is that with an average food stamp allowance of $24 per person per week, you can't really buy much of anything.
I hope I never end up on food stamps. If I were obliged to reduce my appetite to accommodate a budget of $24 a week, I would definitely be in need of something stronger than orangeade to take my mind off the situation.
Back in October 2000, just before he was elected president, George Bush described his base as "the haves and the have mores." The remark was made in jest at the annual Al Smith Black Tie dinner, but the joke turned out to be on all those people who used to have just about enough, and who now, eight years later, have next to nothing.
According to government data, as of September, 31.5 million Americans were using the food stamp program, up 17% from the previous year. That's 10% of the US population. These are staggering figures.
They bring to mind another staggering figure I recently came across that I have been unable to remove from my subconscious. It is $163,987,000 - the salary that Henry Paulson, now secretary of the US Treasury, took home in 2006 for his services as CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Two years later, Goldman Sachs required a massive bail-out from taxpayers. Many of these taxpayers may soon be applying for food stamps.
When Paulson sits down to his sumptuous Christmas feast, paid for with some of the spoils from that nine-figure salary, I hope he will he spare a thought for the 10% of Americans who have barely enough to eat.
I'm sure that if he ever witnessed first hand the humiliation of a person unable to pay for their food at a supermarket checkout, he would feel compelled to redistribute his millions among the 31.5 million food stamp recipients.
Maybe then they could afford a decent Christmas dinner next year.
Sadhbh Walshe is a film-maker and former staff writer for the CBS drama series The District. Her opinion pieces have also been published in the Chicago Tribune and Irish Times.
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Celebrating a Christmas Truce and the Prospect of Peace
posted by JOHN NICHOLS on 12/24/2008 @ 8:22pm
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/391759/celebrating_a_christmas_truce_and_the_prospect_of_peace?rel=hp_blogs_box
On November 11 of this year - the 80th anniversary of that 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month when World War I ended - there was dedicated in Frélinghien, France, a memorial to the most remarkable event not merely of that particular conflict but perhaps of all conflicts.
The memorial recalls a soccer game played on Christmas Day, 1914, between men from the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the 134th Saxon Infantry Regiment.
The Saxons regiment won the game 2-1.
Then, the two teams partook of plum pudding proffered by the Welshmen and a barrel of beer rolled onto the field by the Saxons. They sang a few carols and hung candles from a bush in the rough fashion of a Christmas tree.
It was "a quite social party," one soldier wrote home to his family.
This was no ordinary holiday party, however.
It was, the soldier suggested, "the most memorable Christmas I've ever spent."
Those who know their military history will recognize that what was remarkable about the game was that it involved soldiers in the service of the British king and German kaiser who, only hours before, had been battling one another - and who, in short order, would be battling once again.
They were participants in an event that was almost lost to history - the Christmas Truce of 1914.
The British and German governments denied that the truce even took place.
War historians neglected this chapter in the story of "the war to end all wars."
But those who participated in the truce remembered it.
Men like Alfred Anderson, who died in 2005 at the very ripe old age of 109.
In his last years, as rumors of the truce attracted the attention of new generations of historians and journalists, Anderson found finally that his recollection of that Christmas Truce of 1914 - a brief respite from the carnage of World War I that saw soldiers of both sides in the conflict lay down their arms, climb out of their trenches and celebrate together along the 500-mile Western Front.
Anderson was the last surviving old soldier known to have participated in what he would refer to in his later years as "a short peace in a terrible war."
That peace, which was initiated not by presidents or prime ministers, but by the soldiers themselves, serves to this day as a reminder that war is seldom so necessary -- nor so unstoppable -- as politicians would have us believe.
So it comes as no surprise that the Christmas Truce of 1914 is a bit of history that many in power have neglected over the past 90 years.
But Anderson's long survival, and his clear memory, made it impossible to write this chapter out of history.
On December 25, 1914, Anderson was an 18-year-old soldier serving with 5th Battalion, Black Watch, of the British Army, one of the first to engage in the bloody trench warfare that was the ugliest manifestation of a war that claimed 31 million lives. But on that day, there was no violence.
Rather, Anderson recalled in an interview on the 90th anniversary of the truce, "there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see. We shouted 'Merry Christmas,' even though nobody felt merry."
The calls of "Merry Christmas" from the Brits were answered by Germans singing: "Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht."
The Brits responded by singing "Silent Night" in English. Then, from the trenches opposite them, climbed a German soldier who held a small tree lit with candles and shouted in broken English, "Merry Christmas. We not shoot. You not shoot."
Thus, began the Christmas Truce. Soldiers of both armies -- more than a million in all -- climbed from the trenches along the Western Front to exchange cigarettes and military badges. They even played soccer, using the helmets they had taken off as goalposts. And they did not rush to again take up arms. Along some stretches of the Front, the truce lasted into January of 1915.
Finally, distant commanders forced the fighting to begin anew.
Thus, it has ever been with war. As George McGovern, the decorated World War II veteran who would become one of America's greatest champions of peace, "old men (are always) thinking up wars for young men to die in."
But Anderson remembered, well beyond the century of two world wars and too many lesser conflicts, that the young men of opposing armies often have more in common with one another than they do with the old men who send them into battle.
Once, on a Christmas Day that ought not be forgotten, young men decided to make a short peace in a terrible war.
Ninety years on, Alfred Anderson and his comrades in the Christmas Truce of 1914 have a memorial.
Like most memorials erected along what was the western front, it recalls warriors.
But this is a monument to peace.
It invites us to recall the courage of those who chose, however briefly, to see the humanity in one another, and to lay down the arms of one of the most brutal wars this planet has ever seen, offers hope this weekend, as Christians mark the birth of the Nazarene who was called Prince of Peace. Perhaps, someday, we will make a Christmas truce that lasts not merely through the hours of good cheer on this Holiday but the whole year long.
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From http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/23-2 ...
Published on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Hannukah Lights Can Symbolize Non-Violence Too
by Ira Chernus
Jews all over the world are lighting the candles on their Hanukkah menorahs this week to symbolize -- what? Well, they don't all have the same answer. They all agree that the holiday commemorates the victory of the Maccabees and their followers, Judeans who ousted the foreign emperor Antiochus Epiphanes after he had seized the great Temple in Jerusalem. But why did those ancient Jews fight? What were they risking their lives for?
Some say it was for freedom to practice their religion as they wished. Some say it was for freedom to govern themselves as they wished. Some say political and religious freedom are woven together so tightly that there is no real difference between the two.
In fact it's not likely that the Jews who won that victory in 165 BCE actually valued freedom of any kind very much, at least not freedom as we understand it: the ability to make individual autonomous decisions. What they valued was the ability and willingness of their whole nation to be subservient to their father in heaven and his laws. Today some Jews still say Hanukkah symbolizes dedication to obeying Jewish law.
There are plenty of more modern interpretations too. For example, the influential Jewish leader Edgar Bronfman reads the Maccabees' story of triumph against all odds as a tale about the power of hope. He wants it to spur Jews to create a practice based not in fear but in hope. Rabbi Arthur Waskow sees the ancient miracle story -- which says that one day's worth of lamp oil burned for eight days -- as a symbol of the need to cut US oil consumption by seven-eighths, by the year 2020.
This debate about the meaning of Hanukkah reminds us that a religious community is rarely as unified or monolithic as we might think. Just as the meaning that we attach to gift-giving changes over the years, so a religious community's values change, although the material symbols are more likely to remain the same. Even at any one time the community is likely to be disagreeing about its values, which means it is disagreeing about the proper interpretation of its symbols.
In fact, as Bronfman points out, the first Hanukkah involved a bitter dispute about religion within the Jewish community.
Like this year's Hanukkah, the first one happened in a time of economic crisis. At least it was a crisis for Antiochus Ephiphanes, the Seleucid emperor based in Syria. He was waging an unending power struggle against the Ptolemy empire, based in Egypt. As Antiochus struggled to fund his ever-mounting military budget, he had a liquidity problem. He was cash starved. At the same time, he was struggling to keep control of the little province of Judea, because it was right in that border area where the two great empires met.
So he got a clever idea. He would loot the great temple of Jerusalem. He could take all its treasure to fund his military campaigns, and at the same time show the world that he had a firm grip on this crucial border province. Fortunately for Antiochus, there was a faction of priests in the Jerusalem temple that were willing to help him take its treasure. They had learned to speak Greek and taken on Greek cultural ways. They thought it made good political sense to be an ally rather than an enemy of the ruling power. They probably saw personal advantage in being the emperor's agents, too.
But some of them, at least, surely cared for more than money and power. They were swept up in a larger movement among the Judeans. It was a time of rapid change, when people first saw a chance to break down the parochial barriers that separated nations and ethnic groups from each other. In Judea, as throughout the Hellenistic world, people who thought of themselves as the most modern and culturally advanced all spoke Greek. They were excited about the Greek emphasis on rationality sweeping through their world, freeing them from old superstitions. They were learning to value the individual, free to search for his or her own truth. For some Jews, that was a breath of fresh modernizing air, releasing them from what they saw as the stifling culture of their ancestors.
As modernizing Hellenists searched for truth, in Judea and elsewhere, reason led them to some shared conclusion. They agreed that everyone would be better off if all would lower the barriers dividing one group from another. So they took an interest in each other's cultures and religions. They exchanged ideas and got excited about discovering common values amidst their diversity, fusing all the particular cultures into one universal culture. As they shared their religious views, reason generally led them all to conclude there was only one god. Although that god could be worshiped in an endless number of ways, each way was equally valid, because ultimately all were worshiping the same god.
Judea, like every other part of the Hellenistic world, had its share of these progressive rationalists, though we have no idea how many. We get a glimpse of their views and values in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which was probably written by one of their number. The author reflects their inquiring spirit when he tells us that he had set his mind to study everything that is done under the sun. And he came to the conclusion that the particularist views of the ancient Jews no longer made sense. He found it unreasonable that God would reward people who followed his commandments and punish those who didn't. He found it unreasonable that the one god of the universe would pick one nation above all others has his chosen people. The only reasonable value he could find was to live each day to the fullest, to eat your bread with enjoyment and drink your wine with a merry heart, to enjoy your work and your life with the spouse whom you love.
Progressive thinkers like author of Ecclesiastes took the risk of giving up old values and an old way of life in order to adapt to a changing world and bring new, modern values into their community. Setting out to try to understand everything, following only the dictates of reason, they gave up the security that comes from clinging to old familiar ways. They took the risk of questioning everything, never knowing where that quest might lead.
They took political risks, too. They had learned their new ways from the foreigners who had conquered their province and now ruled it. So it was easy for them to see it as common sense to ally with the foreign emperor. When the economic crunch came and the emperor wanted to seize the Temple, they were ready to help him. Why make such a fuss over a Temple dedicated to keeping alive the ancient superstitions of a tiny little province, which would soon be absorbed into the emerging universal culture?
Of course such a cosmopolitan attitude inevitably evoked a backlash. There were other Jews who were dead set on maintaining their unique cultural values, traditions, and lifestyle. They resented the modernizers as collaborators with foreigners who oppressed them economically, but perhaps even more oppressed them culturally and spiritually. Judea was locked in a culture war. The economic crisis of Antiochus Epiphanes heightened the tensions and eventually turned them into a military war.
There are no clear-cut good guys or bad guys in this story. Both sides made some choices that progressives today are likely to likely to judge harshly. Both sides had values progressives are likely to admire. But both sides were willing to sacrifice and take risks for the values that they believed would sustain and enhance the life of their community.
In a holiday season so preoccupied with giving gifts, the story of the Maccabees and their foes reminds us that giving ourselves and our values is not only the greatest gift we can give to our community. It's also the riskiest kind of gift. It always means taking the risk that we might be wrong. Others in our community, and generations to come, may very well judge us and decide that we were wrong. Yet we can admire both sides for walking the walk: acting on their values in order to enhance the life of their community. They did not let the inevitable moral ambiguities of life paralyze them.
In fact both sides were so far from seeing the ambiguities, they were so certain they had the truth, that they were willing to kill for it, which makes the story of the first Hanukkah even more morally confusing and disturbing.
We are perhaps more aware than the ancient Judeans that every situation is fraught with ambiguity, that we can and should never feel certain we are in the right. This makes it less likely that we will impose our values on others. But it also makes us less likely to speak out for, and act upon, the moral values we believe in. We are more likely to feel paralyzed by moral uncertainty and end up not taking the risk of acting for our community at all.
In an economic crisis, when the future is so uncertain, we may be even more hesitant to act at all. Yet such a time of scarcity, with all the strain and suffering that it brings, is precisely the time when our actions on behalf of others are most needed. Moral paralysis now is more dangerous than ever.
So the Hanukkah story, in its full complexity, brings us face to face with the great problem: How can we act on our values yet not force our values on others? The story itself offers no good answer, because all the actors in it tried to force the other side to give in through violence.
The one tradition that does point to an answer seems far away from the story of the Maccabeean war. It's the tradition of non-violence. Once we see the full, complicated history of Hanukkah, it can easily symbolize for us the basic values of nonviolence: When we see moral wrongs we should do everything we can to set them right. But we should remember, at every moment, that we are acting on our own view of moral truth, that things look quite different to others, that no one can ever have the whole truth. That's precisely why we should we willing to suffer for the sake of our moral convictions but never inflict suffering on others.
The menorah lights remind us that the greatest gift we can give is to act firmly and energetically for the sake of the truth as we see it, yet at the same time extend to everyone, even those we oppose most strongly, our compassion, our understanding, our awareness that there are never any easy answers in life, because any situation that really matters is bound to be fraught with moral uncertainty.
We may never be able to give that gift in grand public gestures, like Gandhi or Martin Luther King. But the little gifts are just as meaningful as the big expensive ones. We can give the most valuable gift every day in little ways, every time we do what we think is right while giving everyone our love and understanding, because we know that we are all caught in the same snares of complexity and ambiguity, all trying our best to find our way in the dim light of the little bit of truth that is given to us.
Ira Chernus, a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is the author of American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea. Having written extensively on Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and George W. Bush, he is now writing a book tentatively titled "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the National Insecurity State." He can be contacted at chernus@colorado.edu.
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From http://www.truthout.org/122508Z ...
Seasonal Forgiveness Has a Limit. Bush and His Cronies Must Face a Reckoning.
Wednesday 24 December 2008
by: Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian UK
Heinous crimes are now synonymous with this US administration. If it isn't held to account, what does that say about us?
'Tis the night before Christmas and the season of goodwill. The mood is forgiving. Our faces warm with mulled wine, our tummies full, we're meant to slump in the armchair, look back on the year just gone and count our blessings - woozily agreeing to put our troubles behind us.
As in families, so in the realm of public and international affairs. And this December that feels especially true. The "war on terror" that dominated much of the decade seems to be heading towards a kind of conclusion. George Bush will leave office in a matter of weeks and British troops will leave Iraq a few months later. The first, defining phase of the conflict that began on 9/11 - the war of Bush, Tony Blair and Osama bin Laden - is about to slip from the present to the past tense. Bush and Blair will be gone, with only Bin Laden still in post. The urge to move on is palpable.
You can sense it in the valedictory interviews Bush and Dick Cheney are conducting on their way out. They're looking to the verdict of history now, Cheney telling the Washington Times last week: "I myself am personally persuaded that this president and this administration will look very good 20 or 30 years down the road." The once raging arguments of the current era are about to fade, the lead US protagonists heading off to their respective ranches in the west, the rights and wrongs of their decisions in office to be weighed not in the hot arena of politics, but in the cool seminar rooms of the academy.
Not so fast.
Yes, the new year would get off to a more soothing start if we could all agree to draw a line and move on. But it would be wrong. First, because we cannot hope to avoid repeating the errors of the last eight years unless they are subject to a full accounting. (It is for that reason Britain needs its own full, unconstrained inquiry into the Iraq war.) Second, because a crucial principle, one that goes to the very heart of the American creed, is at stake. And third, because this is not solely about the judgment of history. It may be about the judgment of the courts - specifically those charged with punishing war crimes.
Less than a fortnight ago, in the news graveyard of a Friday afternoon, the armed services committee of the US Senate released a bipartisan report - with none other than John McCain as its co-author - into the American use of torture against those held in the war on terror. It dismissed entirely the notion that the horrors of Abu Ghraib could be put down to "a few bad apples". Instead it laid bare, in forensic detail, the trail of memos and instructions that led directly to the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
The report was the fruit of 18 months of work, involving some 70 interviews. Most of it is classified, but even the 29-page published summary makes horrifying reading. It shows how the most senior figures in the Bush administration discussed, and sought legal fig leaves for, practices that plainly amounted to torture. They were techniques devised in a training programme known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape or SERE, that aimed to teach elite American soldiers how to endure torture should they fall into the hands of pitiless enemies. The SERE techniques were partly modelled on the brutal methods used by the Chinese against US prisoners during the Korean war. Yet Rumsfeld ruled that these same techniques should be "reverse engineered", so that Americans would learn not how to endure them - but how to inflict them. Which they then did, at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and beyond.
The Senate report cites the memorandums requesting permission to use "stress positions, exploitation of detainee fears (such as fear of dogs), removal of clothing, hooding, deprivation of light and sound, and the so-called wet towel treatment or the waterboard". We read of Mohamed al Kahtani - against whom all charges were dropped earlier this year - who was "deprived of adequate sleep for weeks on end, stripped naked, subjected to loud music, and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks". Approval for this kind of torture, hidden under the euphemism of "enhanced interrogation", was sought from and granted at the highest level.
And that doesn't mean Rumsfeld. The report's first conclusion is that, on "7 February 2002, President George W Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban detainees". The result, it says, is that Bush "opened the door" to the use of a raft of techniques that the US had once branded barbaric and beyond the realm of human decency.
For this Bush should surely be held to account. And yet there is no sign that he will, and precious little agitation that he should. A still smiling Cheney denies the Bush administration did anything wrong. Note this breathtaking exchange with Fox News at the weekend. He was asked: "If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?" Cheney's answer: "General proposition, I'd say yes."
It takes a few seconds for the full horror of that remark to sink in. And then you remember where you last heard something like it. It was the now immortalized interview between David Frost and Richard Nixon. The disgraced ex-president was asked whether there were certain situations where the president can do something illegal, if he deems it in the national interest. Nixon's reply: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
It is no coincidence that Cheney began his career in the Nixon White House. He has the same Nixonian disregard for the US constitution, the same belief that executive power is absolute and unlimited - that those who wield it are above the law, domestic and international. It is the logic of dictatorship.
But Nixon was forced from office, his vision of an unrestrained presidency rejected. If Bush and Cheney are allowed to retire quietly, America will have failed to reassert that bedrock principle of the republic: the rule of law.
This is why there must be a reckoning. Bush will do all he can to avoid it: and it is wholly possible that one of his last acts as president will be to cover himself, his vice-president and all his henchmen with a blanket pardon. Even if that does not happen, Barack Obama is unlikely to want to spend precious capital pursuing his predecessor for war crimes.
But other prosecutors elsewhere in the world should weigh their responsibilities. In the end, it was a lone Spanish magistrate, not a Chilean court, who ensured the arrest of Augusto Pinochet. A pleasing, if uncharitable, thought this Christmas, is that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush will hesitate before making plans to travel abroad in 2009. Or indeed at any time - ever again.
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From http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php?story=20071213175055906 ...
THE GHOSTS OF CHANUKAH FUTURE
posted thursday, december 13 2007 @ 05:50 pm pst
Rabbi Jill Jacobs on how Chanukah represents the triumph of memory over history.
The Ghosts of Chanukah Future
Jill Jacobs
Tikkun Exclusive
It has become fashionable in Jewish liberal circles to note the irony that Chanukah, historically a victory of religious zealots over assimilationists, has become so popular among American Jews who participate in few or no other Jewish rituals. Even those of us who are regularly active in Jewish life may find it hard to identify with Mattathias, the leader of the Jewish revolt, whom the first Book of Maccabees depicts as killing a Jew who sacrifices to a pagan god. Anyone who has admired a work of ancient Greek culture can imagine the appeal this accomplished society might have had for the Jewish proponents of Hellenization.
We are hardly the first generation to have felt discomfort with the story of Chanukah, as recorded in the first two Books of Maccabees. The rabbis of the Talmud famously transformed the holiday from a commemoration of a military victory into a celebration of a divine miracle by which one flask of oil lasted for eight nights. This invention reflects rabbinic ambivalence about the Hasmonean dynasty, the Jewish autonomous government installed by the victors, which proved corrupt and whose failure ultimately led to the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple. The early Zionists, on the other hand, saw the Maccabees as archetypes of the new Jews, who would not shy away from military or political power. For American Jews, Chanukah has become the primary defense against full assimilation, represented by Christmas. The attempts to turn Christmas into a universalist holiday of peace, love, and joy have only strengthened many Jews' resolve to cling to Chanukah as a shield against full assimilation into white-bread Americana.
Jewish thinkers have long noticed that Chanukah is a strange holiday, both because of the confusion about its meaning, and because of the way in which it is celebrated. The Kedushat Levi (Rabbi Levi of Berditchev), an eighteenth century Hasidic figure, zeroes in on the most prominent, and perhaps most unusual aspect of the holiday's observance. In considering the difference between the rituals of Chanukah and those of Purim and Pesach-two holidays which also commemorate the triumph of a Jewish minority over a great superpower-he notices the absence of any parallel practice of creating a visual symbol of the divine miracle that these holidays celebrate. That is, on Hanukah we light candles to recall the long-lasting oil for the Temple menorah-but on Purim, there is no mitzvah involving wood to symbolize that Haman was hung from a tree; and on Pesach, no ritual objects evoke the ten plagues or the parting of the Red Sea.
With this question, the Kedushat Levi highlights the central problem of the Chanukah story as constructed by the rabbis: namely, the supposed miracle is actually inconsequential to the story. That is, if the Hasmoneans had not found enough oil for eight days, they still would have overcome the odds to win political power; furthermore, thanks to the stipulation that one is not obligated to perform a mitzvah that is impossible, they would have been religiously exempted from lighting the menorah in the Temple until they were able to procure new oil. Lighting the Chanukah menorah, then, suggests the Kedushat Levi, does not commemorate the miracle of the Hasmonean victory, but rather serves as a sign of God's delight in the Jewish people's festivals and celebrations. God therefore provided eight days of oil not as a means of facilitating a victory or of ensuring the fulfillment of an obligation, but rather as a sign of a continuing and symbiotic relationship between the Jewish people and God.
This image of the Chanukah menorah as the symbol of the ongoing relationship between the Jewish people and God, and not primarily as a marker of a specific historical event, allows us to understand Chanukah as the story of the evolution of Jewish practice and self-definition, rather than simply as a commemoration of a political or religious struggle.
In Zakhor, his definitive study on Jewish memory, Yosef Yerushalmi wrote, "Memory is, by nature, selective...the fact that history has meaning does not mean that everything that happened in history is meaningful or worthy of recollection...the real danger is not so much that what happened in the past will be forgotten, as the more crucial aspect of how it happened."
Perhaps more than anything, Chanukah represents the triumph of memory over history. While the historical facts of Chanukah, insofar as we know these facts, have been available to every generation of Jews, each generation has selected from these historical facts the memories and attributions that speak best to the moment. For the rabbis of the Talmud, it was most important to credit the Chanukah miracle to God; for the Zionists, it was most important to credit this miracle to a scrappy band of political warriors; for contemporary Americans, it has been most important to credit the miracle to an enduring commitment to peoplehood. And presumably, voices in every generation have complained that the reinterpreters are getting the story wrong.
It has sometimes been said that Judaism is too focused on the past. Every generation of Jews mourns for the good old days and fears imminent extinction. But the past for which we yearn is not necessarily the past of history. Most of us would prefer not to return to a time when we were forced to choose between zealotry and full assimilation, or when a single set of standards governed religious practice.
History may be about the past, but memory is about the future. In redefining Chanukah, each generation considers anew the questions of assimilation and ethnic identity, the tension between Judaism as a religion and the Jewish people as a nation, and the possibility of identifying the divine presence, even in the darkest of moments.
It is valuable to deconstruct or debunk the many histories of Chanukah. But even more valuable are the discussions and explorations of the complexities tensions inherent in Jewish identity, assimilation, and the divine relationship. Each generation and each Jew needs to live in those tensions and to find the balance that brings light to each moment. Teaching ourselves and our children to grapple with these competing ideals and priorities may be the most profound Chanukah observance we can create - and one that will most successfully carry Judaism and Jewish peoplehood into the future.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Rabbi-in-Residence of the Jewish Funds for Justice.
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Also from Tikkun website-- http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php/20081215114641736 ...
GOING TOO SLOW ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
posted monday, december 15 2008 @ 11:46 am pst
Bill McKibben asks us to overcome our illusions that things are getting better or that we are on a rational path finally.
This is a guest post from Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and author of a dozen books, most recently The Bill McKibben Reader. McKibben serves on Grist's board of directors and is co-founder of 350.org.
I spent the last few nights of the recent Poznan climate conference sleeping in the By the Way youth hostel, an excellent accommodation filled with excellent young people who had done excellent work at the negotiations. After the final day of deliberations, many of these young people visited the doubtless excellent discotheques of Poznan, returning home beginning about 4 a.m. in various states of excited giddiness. This allowed those of us (well, the one of us) of a more elderly persuasion an excellent opportunity to lie awake, thinking over the events of the days just past. And what I kept thinking about was the old model of the universe, which held that the Earth was at the center.
This so-called "Ptolemaic Universe" seemed obvious -- since our planet clearly stood still, and since the other planets rotated around it daily, it was pretty darned clear that we were the stationary middle. It's true that attempts to map the slightly odd orbits of those planets -- which at various points would "retrograde," or turn backward -- cast some doubt, but not enough to really shake anyone's faith. The Greek astronomers invented all sorts of flourishes to make the orbital calculations work: deferents and epicycles, equants and eccentrics, little wheels within wheels that preserved the theory for a very long time, more than a thousand years -- till finally Copernicus came along with some new data and blew the whole thing up.
In somewhat the same way, we've all agreed to suspend disbelief for a long time and keep pretending that the process to do something about global warming is working. The text of the developing treaty is stupendously complicated, with a thousand fixes to plug various leaks: how you count where the carbon will come from, and who will pay what to whom, and what about those forests, anyway? The debate is staggeringly dull, and incredibly hard to follow. Every once in a while, some expert or another will emerge to say that the European Union has backslid on its intermediate targets, or that the global financing facility needs to be reconstituted, or so on.
But the real problem with the whole process is that, for some time now, it has been out of phase with the science of global warming. It's impossible to take the most recent science, and the real world that it describes, and square it with the model being put together at these endless Conferences of the Parties (last week was the 14th, and the rainy, raw, dreary Polish weather matched the mood). The most obvious way to state this would be: The Arctic has now melted, 50 years ahead of the schedule that scientists had predicted when these talks were in their infancy. What does that tell you?
The language of these negotiations is numbers, and so the less obvious but more pragmatically powerful way to state it is: These interminable talks are designed to build a machine that would halt the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 to 550 parts per million. They're so loaded with loopholes, and the timetables are so slow, that they probably wouldn't accomplish even that, but that's the goal. The theory is that the world we need is a 450 world, based on the science from five and 10 and 15 years ago.
But a year ago, our leading scientific authority on climate change, NASA's James Hansen, said that was wrong. All the data that he and his team assembled suggested that 350 parts per million was the maximum possible if we wished to keep "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed, and to which life on earth is adapted." They pointed to not just the Arctic melt, but the shocking thaw of sub-tropical glaciers, the shifting of monsoonal rain patterns, and the rapidly developing fear that Greenland and the West Antarctic could raise sea levels much more quickly than we'd previously imagined. They said -- in the context of these talks -- that the sun does not in fact revolve around the Earth.
If such a view grows to be accepted, the implications are enormous. We would have to move much more quickly -- we're already at 387 parts per million, i.e., too high -- and we'd have to cut much more deeply. Hansen's calculations show that you'd need to be done burning coal by 2030, and much sooner in the developed world, if you were going to keep enough carbon out of the atmosphere to allow the chance for forests and oceans to cycle CO2 out and someday return us to 350. In essence, a 350 world would demand emergency action.
Since change comes slowly, work on the treaty has continued little affected for the last year. But the new data was beginning to sink in. (I should note my own interest here -- I've spent the last year helping to run 350.org, a global campaign designed to spread this news far and wide.) Early in these Polish talks, the Lesser Developed Countries and the small island nations started talking a lot about "survivability." They'd begun to figure out that following the negotiating script meant they'd soon be hauling their flags down from in front of the U.N. because their nations would have disappeared beneath rising seas or spreading deserts. This "survivability," they said, corresponded with "350."
And then, on the last day of the talks, Al Gore gave his speech, which drew everyone into the main conference hall. It was a good talk, but by far the longest and loudest applause came when he formally announced the new reality. "Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which seems so difficult today, is inadequate," he said, adding that we "need to toughen that goal to 350 parts per million." People erupted -- probably not the Chinese and American delegations, and definitely not the Saudis and the Russians, but all the people who'd spent the last few years struggling with the idea that their work was getting increasingly off-the-point. It was a way of saying: We've been engaged in saving the treaty, not saving the world -- and we'd rather save the world.
Given the momentum of the talks, they will drag on -- nations have February deadlines for submitting responses to drafts, and new meetings in March and June, and everything points toward Copenhagen next December, where a final pact is supposed to be signed. But it's hard to see now how that's going to happen. Both Hansen, the leading scientific authority on climate change, and Gore, the leading political voice, have endorsed the idea of 350 as the only rational target. They've said the world circles the sun. Now we have to proceed on that understanding. It won't be easy -- "political reality" says it's impossible. But political reality is easier to change than scientific reality. Since we can't change the laws of physics, we're going to have to try and change the laws of man.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
forum w/Central Hudson et. al. Jan. 8th: Speak Out: Response to Ice and Snow Storms...
Hi all...
Regardless of whether or not you agree with this letter below in today's paper from Rhinebeck's Barry Shapiro, you might want to come out to the forum ("Speak Out: Response to Ice and Snow Storms") I'm co-hosting with Central Hudson at the Rhinebeck Village Hall at 76 East Market St. on Thursday Jan. 8th at 7 pm-- so you all from across our region can come out and share concerns and suggestions on how Central Hudson and others might better prepare/respond to ice/snow storms and power outages in particular...
Town of Rhinebeck Emergency Management Coordinator Henry Campbell will be on the panel that evening, as well as Rhinebeck Town Highway Superintendent Kathy Kinsella-- and Central Hudson's spokesman John Maserjian assured us last week that a representative from Central Hudson also definitely be present that night on the panel to hear concerns...[I've also invited John Murphy (Dutchess County Emergency Response Coordinator) and representatives from Rhinebeck and Clinton town government as well to this]...
From today's paper-- http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081223/OPINION02/812230302 ...
[...here on Browns Pond Road in Clinton we lost power Dec. 11th and got it back on the 16th-- you?...]
Central Hudson Slow To Get Power Back
As I write this letter without electricity for five days since Dec. 11 at 11 p.m. and no definite time for restoration from Central Hudson, I can only conclude nothing has changed in Dutchess County with Central Hudson since April 1997, the last fiasco when 100,000 people were without power for seven days.
Central Hudson claimed bragging rights that it made electric service more reliable since 1997 by embarking on a campaign to cut back trees along every road in Dutchess. What probably happened afterward was management became too confident and proceeded to lay off personnel, figuring they're in a good place now and can satisfy their investors for a greater return on their investments.
What is apparent is management has once again put the electric customer at a disadvantage. Why doesn't Central Hudson have enough crews to handle an emergency? Yeah, they're good when a telephone pole comes down due to a car accident.
This is 2008 and I live four miles out of the Village of Rhinebeck. Everyone that I could see has power as of Saturday (Dec. 13) in the area that surrounds my street.
What has emerged over the years is that Central Hudson thinks most people have generators now, so it's not too much of an inconvenience. Why should anyone have to subsidize Central Hudson's ability to restore power quickly with an expensive generator system? I am not impressed with you, Central Hudson. Shame on you.
Barry Shapiro
Rhinebeck
Recall below as well...
From this week's Gazette Advertiser-- "Ice Storm Cripples Region":
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20222825&BRD=1702&PAG=461&dept_id=69079&rfi=6 .
Dec. 12th Pok. Journal-- "60,000 Without Power; Ice, Fallen Trees Close Taconic: Shelters Open"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081212/NEWS01/812120350/-1/comm19 ...
Last Tuesday's Daily Freeman-- "Outages Persist in Dutchess"
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/doc494714f96a8e6726409733.txt
The issues/suggestions below have already been made by some Northern Dutchess residents:
90% of folks (according to some) hook up generators wrong way dangerously backfeeding into houses:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/1846297.html ;
http://www.portlandgeneral.com/safety_and_outage/outage/generator_safety.aspx ;
http://www.ravallielectric.com/safety_energy/safety/generators.html ;
http://www.tpcg.org/view.php?page=generator ;
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7148585/description.html ;
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7148585.html .
Some have understandably pointed out that all houses should have double-throw safety switches:
http://www.alleghenypower.com/CSC/Services/generator.pdf ;
http://forum.doityourself.com/electrical-c-d-c/328556-double-throw-generator.html .
Others made point that people across U.S. poisoned, killed from carbon monoxide from generators:
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/blandford_couple_stricken_with.html?category=Weather ; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16420108/ ;
http://www.cdc.gov/HealthMarketing/entertainment_education/tips/carbmnx.htm ;
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/co.html .
Finally, a local business owner from Clinton recently wrote us this: "I will definitely be there Jan. 8th for this forum-- I believe the county should be responsible for providing dry ice immediately after a loss of power, whether it be free or at a price. People would pay $10 for a bag of dry ice if it meant saving hundreds of dollars in food. I had no electric for 4 days, which impacted my home and my business. I really have no idea how much business I possibly lost. I lost all the food in my fridge and freezer. Central Hudson had a recording that said they were not excepting phone calls at this time. I stopped by Senator Saland's office and asked if they knew where we could purchase dry ice. They called Central Hudson and got the same message and then called the County Emergency Response Coordinator. His office finally called me back later on that day and said there was nothing they could do. It was all up to Central Hudson. I was willing to pay for dry ice if they could just tell me where to get it. He told me that my fridge and freezer was not his concern. I will be there on January 8th with lots of questions"...
[pass it on-- all out Jan. 8th 7 pm to Rhinebeck Village Hall to speak out with your feedback/ideas!]
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
[note-- scroll down just a bit to see "Power Outage Haiku" from Clinton's Elizabeth Cunningham Smyth]
p.s. Check out http://www.APPAnet.org if you haven't already-- there are still dozens of locally owned municipal utilities across NY (and many more across the U.S.) that often provide greener power, are more reliable, and actually cheaper than investor-owned utilities like Central Hudson (with all due respect)....[recall August '03 blackout-- and how many of these little publicly owned utilities kept power goin' much better than the bigger private investor-owned utilities like Central Hudson-- and recall Craig Wolf's PoJo story on how many all across Dutchess County joined with me to push County Legislature Minority Dems to call for feasibility study on possibility of switching to cheaper, greener, public power]...
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From Clinton's Elizabeth Cunningham Smyth (Medb44@aol.com)...
Here's a minimalist account in haiku of our outage.
Power Outage Haiku
First night
lights pulse then go out
find the candles, stoke the fire
dark sleep, heavy duvet
First morning
light the gas stove, get
more wood, haul water
ice-coated trees, frozen fire
Afternoon
sky clearing, trees blaze
sun a bright brief candle
twilight by Olga's fire
Second morning
breakfast in Schultzville
a burst of joy, the water-
fall fills my bucket
Spooked
cats don't like a house
that doesn't purr, we
nap together for comfort
Second night
days short, toilets full
is Olga all right
our pioneer spirit flags
Third Day
there is only
chopping wood, hauling water
nothing else matters.
Fourth morning
overnight thaw, no
more natural freezer
last ones without power
Restoration
on the grid again
wash dishes, do wash
relieved but greatly humbled
Regardless of whether or not you agree with this letter below in today's paper from Rhinebeck's Barry Shapiro, you might want to come out to the forum ("Speak Out: Response to Ice and Snow Storms") I'm co-hosting with Central Hudson at the Rhinebeck Village Hall at 76 East Market St. on Thursday Jan. 8th at 7 pm-- so you all from across our region can come out and share concerns and suggestions on how Central Hudson and others might better prepare/respond to ice/snow storms and power outages in particular...
Town of Rhinebeck Emergency Management Coordinator Henry Campbell will be on the panel that evening, as well as Rhinebeck Town Highway Superintendent Kathy Kinsella-- and Central Hudson's spokesman John Maserjian assured us last week that a representative from Central Hudson also definitely be present that night on the panel to hear concerns...[I've also invited John Murphy (Dutchess County Emergency Response Coordinator) and representatives from Rhinebeck and Clinton town government as well to this]...
From today's paper-- http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081223/OPINION02/812230302 ...
[...here on Browns Pond Road in Clinton we lost power Dec. 11th and got it back on the 16th-- you?...]
Central Hudson Slow To Get Power Back
As I write this letter without electricity for five days since Dec. 11 at 11 p.m. and no definite time for restoration from Central Hudson, I can only conclude nothing has changed in Dutchess County with Central Hudson since April 1997, the last fiasco when 100,000 people were without power for seven days.
Central Hudson claimed bragging rights that it made electric service more reliable since 1997 by embarking on a campaign to cut back trees along every road in Dutchess. What probably happened afterward was management became too confident and proceeded to lay off personnel, figuring they're in a good place now and can satisfy their investors for a greater return on their investments.
What is apparent is management has once again put the electric customer at a disadvantage. Why doesn't Central Hudson have enough crews to handle an emergency? Yeah, they're good when a telephone pole comes down due to a car accident.
This is 2008 and I live four miles out of the Village of Rhinebeck. Everyone that I could see has power as of Saturday (Dec. 13) in the area that surrounds my street.
What has emerged over the years is that Central Hudson thinks most people have generators now, so it's not too much of an inconvenience. Why should anyone have to subsidize Central Hudson's ability to restore power quickly with an expensive generator system? I am not impressed with you, Central Hudson. Shame on you.
Barry Shapiro
Rhinebeck
Recall below as well...
From this week's Gazette Advertiser-- "Ice Storm Cripples Region":
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20222825&BRD=1702&PAG=461&dept_id=69079&rfi=6 .
Dec. 12th Pok. Journal-- "60,000 Without Power; Ice, Fallen Trees Close Taconic: Shelters Open"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081212/NEWS01/812120350/-1/comm19 ...
Last Tuesday's Daily Freeman-- "Outages Persist in Dutchess"
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/doc494714f96a8e6726409733.txt
The issues/suggestions below have already been made by some Northern Dutchess residents:
90% of folks (according to some) hook up generators wrong way dangerously backfeeding into houses:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/1846297.html ;
http://www.portlandgeneral.com/safety_and_outage/outage/generator_safety.aspx ;
http://www.ravallielectric.com/safety_energy/safety/generators.html ;
http://www.tpcg.org/view.php?page=generator ;
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7148585/description.html ;
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7148585.html .
Some have understandably pointed out that all houses should have double-throw safety switches:
http://www.alleghenypower.com/CSC/Services/generator.pdf ;
http://forum.doityourself.com/electrical-c-d-c/328556-double-throw-generator.html .
Others made point that people across U.S. poisoned, killed from carbon monoxide from generators:
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/blandford_couple_stricken_with.html?category=Weather ; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16420108/ ;
http://www.cdc.gov/HealthMarketing/entertainment_education/tips/carbmnx.htm ;
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/co.html .
Finally, a local business owner from Clinton recently wrote us this: "I will definitely be there Jan. 8th for this forum-- I believe the county should be responsible for providing dry ice immediately after a loss of power, whether it be free or at a price. People would pay $10 for a bag of dry ice if it meant saving hundreds of dollars in food. I had no electric for 4 days, which impacted my home and my business. I really have no idea how much business I possibly lost. I lost all the food in my fridge and freezer. Central Hudson had a recording that said they were not excepting phone calls at this time. I stopped by Senator Saland's office and asked if they knew where we could purchase dry ice. They called Central Hudson and got the same message and then called the County Emergency Response Coordinator. His office finally called me back later on that day and said there was nothing they could do. It was all up to Central Hudson. I was willing to pay for dry ice if they could just tell me where to get it. He told me that my fridge and freezer was not his concern. I will be there on January 8th with lots of questions"...
[pass it on-- all out Jan. 8th 7 pm to Rhinebeck Village Hall to speak out with your feedback/ideas!]
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
[note-- scroll down just a bit to see "Power Outage Haiku" from Clinton's Elizabeth Cunningham Smyth]
p.s. Check out http://www.APPAnet.org if you haven't already-- there are still dozens of locally owned municipal utilities across NY (and many more across the U.S.) that often provide greener power, are more reliable, and actually cheaper than investor-owned utilities like Central Hudson (with all due respect)....[recall August '03 blackout-- and how many of these little publicly owned utilities kept power goin' much better than the bigger private investor-owned utilities like Central Hudson-- and recall Craig Wolf's PoJo story on how many all across Dutchess County joined with me to push County Legislature Minority Dems to call for feasibility study on possibility of switching to cheaper, greener, public power]...
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From Clinton's Elizabeth Cunningham Smyth (Medb44@aol.com)...
Here's a minimalist account in haiku of our outage.
Power Outage Haiku
First night
lights pulse then go out
find the candles, stoke the fire
dark sleep, heavy duvet
First morning
light the gas stove, get
more wood, haul water
ice-coated trees, frozen fire
Afternoon
sky clearing, trees blaze
sun a bright brief candle
twilight by Olga's fire
Second morning
breakfast in Schultzville
a burst of joy, the water-
fall fills my bucket
Spooked
cats don't like a house
that doesn't purr, we
nap together for comfort
Second night
days short, toilets full
is Olga all right
our pioneer spirit flags
Third Day
there is only
chopping wood, hauling water
nothing else matters.
Fourth morning
overnight thaw, no
more natural freezer
last ones without power
Restoration
on the grid again
wash dishes, do wash
relieved but greatly humbled
new Siena poll corroborates Aug. Quinnipiac poll-- 78% of NY'ers for millionaire's tax!...
Hi all...
For a while now you've heard about that Quinnipiac poll from Aug. 6th showing that a whopping 78% of New Yorkers "support a millionaire's tax to avoid local tax hikes and service cuts"...
[see much more re: Quinnipiac poll at http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1198 ]
Well-- it ain't just Quinnipiac in August, folks-- see below (reported last week on WAMC)-- the Siena poll that just came out confirms the same number-- a whopping 78% of us across NY stand strongly in support of a millionaire's tax!...
So-- call Gov. Paterson and state legislators now at (877) 255-9417-- to support the Better Choice Budget...
[join 39 others @ http://www.PetitionOnline.com/BCBudget ; see statement from 100 economists below]
[...and let us know at 489-5479 if you'd like to be part of a "I'm Part of the 78%" rally locally 'round the corner!...]
Check out http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org for massive Better Choice Budget coalition in support if you haven't yet-- Dutchess Outreach, New York State AFL-CIO, New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, New York Statewide Senior Action Council, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Environmental Advocates of New York State, Citizens Environmental Coalition, The Interfaith Alliance of NYS, AFSCME New York, Citizen Action of New York State, Civil Service Employees Association, Hunger Action Network of NYS, MicroBizNewYork, New York Jobs with Justice, New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, New York State Community Action Association, New York State Episcopal Public Policy Network, New York State Labor Religion Coalition, New York State United Teachers, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Nutrition Consortium of NYS, PEF, Public Utility Law Project, Capital Area Council of Churches, Albany Presbytery, Faith and Hunger Network of NYS, FOCUS Churches of Albany, Greater New York Labor Religion Coalition, Greater NY Labor-Religion Coalition, Labor-Religion Coalition of Chemung County, Labor-Religion Coalition of the Capital District, Leviticus 25:23 Alternative Fund, Inc., Lutheran Statewide Advocacy, Regional Synod of Albany, Reformed Church in America, Office of Justice and Peace, Southern Tier Labor Religion Coalition, many more...
Four important facts from the Better Choice Budget coalition-- "The poorest New Yorkers pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes than do millionaires (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). Top income tax rates for the wealthiest have been reduced from 15.375% to 6.85% over the last 25 years (Division of Budget). Since 2003, people making over $200,000 per year have seen their income grow by 108% while those under $200,000 have seen their income grow by only 15% (Division of Budget). Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says it is better for state's economy to increase taxes on the wealthy rather than to cut spending on goods and services purchased locally."
The fact that the way our tax system is now, middle income New Yorkers now pay literally about twice the state and local taxes that the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay as a percentage of income because of unfair tax shifts to the local level over the last few decades-- it's high time we worked to restore at least just a bit of progressivity and fairness into our tax code, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, as Assemblyman Kevin Cahill himself has repeatedly pointed out in his speeches at Dutchess County Democratic Committee Issues Forums over the last few years...
[see http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm ; http://www.itepnet.org/pb41pit.pdf ;
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/state-tax-issues/new-york/ ]
The richest 1% of New Yorkers are also now paying about half the income taxes to Albany as they did three decades ago under Rockefeller (when our local property taxes weren't nearly so high-- real shift to local level hadn't begun yet). Read "A Little Bit of Tax History-- The Path Not Taken: How New York State Increased the Tax Burden on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for its Highest Income Taxpayers by Over $8 Billion a Year" by Frank Mauro-- at http://www.Fiscalpolicy.org/taxhistory2.htm .
From http://www.cbs6albany.com/common/printer/view.php?db=wrgb&id=1259495 ...
[again-- why does Pok. Journal front page again ignore overwhelming support for millionaire's tax?!?]
"New Siena poll: NYers Strongly Favor Millionaire's Tax"
[CBS 6 News December 17, 2008 - 10:58AM]
A new Siena poll released Wednesday shows New Yorkers...strongly support a millionaire's tax. The poll was taken over the phone Dec. 8th through Dec. 11th, before the Governor released his budget yesterday. New York voters overwhelmingly support the so-called millionaire's tax, with 78 percent supporting a personal income tax increaase on those making more than $1 million, and 61 percent supporting a tax increase on those making more than $250,000. If broad-based taxes are not increased, voters strongly oppose cuts in education and health care.
Statements Concerning New State Budget:
1. Raise income taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $1,000,000
78% support
(65% strongly support)
17% oppose
(12% strongly oppose)
2. Raise income taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $250,000
61% support
(41% strongly support)
31% oppose
(23% strongly oppose)
3. Cut spending for education while not increasing broad-based taxes such as income tax or sales tax
22% support
(12% strongly support)
68% oppose
(54% strongly oppose)
4. Cut spending for health care while not increasing broad-based taxes such as income or sales tax
21% support
(10% strongly support)
65% oppose
(51% strongly oppose)
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
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Recall early Chanukah/Christmas present from Gov. Paterson-- he finally relented a bit on this in this past Sunday's Times:
"Many groups are already broadcasting commercials urging the governor to broadly tax the rich in order to avert some of his steep proposed education and health care cuts. And Mr. Paterson seems to be edging closer to acknowledging that he may have no choice but to do so. 'Taxing the wealthy is probably going to be part of the solution if the deficit gets any worse, and all indications are that it probably will. If the deficit starts to grow again, then we’re out of moves. I’ve cut as much as I could.'"
[see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/nyregion/21millionaire.html?hp ]
Scroll down just a bit to see letter to Gov. Paterson from literally 100 economists from across NY (including many from here in Dutchess at Vassar and Bard)-- making it clear that "steep state budget cuts will exacerbate the economic downturn and harm vulnerable low- and moderate-income New Yorkers; constrained by a balanced budget imperative, states face only difficult choices in balancing their budgets during recessions; economic theory and historical experience gives a clear and unambiguous answer: it is economically preferable to raise taxes on those with high incomes than to cut state expenditures"
[Here in our area the following economists have signed on to endorse this strong statement-- Alexander M. Thompson III of Vassar College, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Greg Hannsgen, Thomas Masterson, Ajit Zacharias, and Feridoon Koohi-Kamali of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Gautam Sethi of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy-- scroll down a bit below for more on this; and click on: http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_Release_EconomistsOnFiscalPolicy_December2008.pdf ]
[also see-- "Recession Prevention: Keynes Was Right" [from Brookings Institution:
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0128_recession_prevention_furman.aspx ]
So-- again-- call Gov. Paterson and state legislators at (877) 255-9417-- to support the Better Choice Budget!...
[and email countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us to get resolution passed in our County Legislature too]
Recall--just five years ago State Senate Majority G.O.P. like Steve Saland worked with guys like Joe Bruno and Shelly Silver to implement an income tax surcharge on the wealthy when the state was facing a similar whopping deficit...(and even Pok. Journal editorials before the election pointed out repeatedly that local Republican state legislators running for re-election supposedly would seriously consider exactly this!)...
Ball's in your court, folks (action steps above to contact county legislators and state legislators on this)...
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From the Fiscal Policy Institute...
[see http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_Release_StatementOnExecutiveBudget.pdf ]
NEWS from the Fiscal Policy Institute
For immediate release: December 16, 2008
Contact: Frank Mauro, FPI Executive Director
518-786-3156 (office), 518-469-6680 (mobile)
James Parrott, FPI Deputy Director and Chief Economist
212-721-5624 (office), 917-880-9931 (mobile)
Jo Brill, FPI Director of Communications
914-671-9442 (mobile)
FPI Reaction to the Proposed Executive Budget
The state’s plan should use all available resources—certainly including funds set
aside precisely to meet unplanned end-of-year deficits. In proposing actions to close
this year’s $1.7 billion deficit, the governor unaccountably ignores balances available in
the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund. This reserve fund is specifically designated for
unplanned end-of-year deficits. It cannot be used to cover already anticipated deficits.
The Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund should be an important component of the plan to
close this year’s deficit.
The governor’s proposal hurts low- and moderate-income New Yorkers while
requiring little from wealthy New Yorkers. Cuts in state programs disproportionately
affect New York’s working and poor families, who have not prospered in recent years
and who will suffer greatly in this recession. “Shared sacrifice” should mean that all New
Yorkers contribute to help solve this problem. The budget should not be balanced on the
backs of low- and moderate-income people.
The governor’s proposal would cause needless harm to the state economy. It relies
heavily on cuts to essential programs and services. Taking away a dollar in government
spending on transfer payments or vital community services has a far more contractionary
impact on the economy than does taking a dollar from a high-income family. During a
recession, the least damaging kind of budget balancing action is an increase in the tax on
the portion of family income over a relatively high level.
Dozens of economists from all over New York State have written to the governor to say,
Steep state budget cuts will exacerbate the economic downturn and harm
vulnerable low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Constrained by a balanced
budget imperative, states face only difficult choices in balancing their budgets
during recessions. Economic theory and historical experience gives a clear and
unambiguous answer: it is economically preferable to raise taxes on those with
high incomes than to cut state expenditures.
Full text of the letter is available at
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_Release_EconomistsOnFiscalPolicy_December2008.pdf .
The governor’s proposed budget also relies on increases in consumption taxes and fees.
While such revenue increases may do less damage to the economy than some expenditure
reductions, they are clearly more harmful than a progressive increase in the income tax.
The lessons from 2003 show that New York can successfully close large budget
gaps—without disproportionately hurting low and middle-income families, or causing
undue harm to the economy. The last time New York dealt with budget gaps of this
magnitude was after 9/11. At that time, in addition to spending cuts, the legislature placed
a temporary income tax surcharge on high-income filers. Employment in the state grew
each year that the surcharge was in place, and the number of high-income returns grew
steadily from about 245,000 in 2002 to an estimated 420,000 in 2007.
Moreover, a recent Princeton study concluded that no net out-migration of the rich
resulted from New Jersey raising income taxes on households with incomes over
$500,000. The governor’s concern that the wealthy will choose to leave New York is
overblown.
[letter here below from 100 economists from all over NYS-- including Vassar and Bard here in Dutchess County]
Dear Governor Paterson:
New York State faces enormous challenges in closing a projected $12.5 billion gap in the 2009-2010 state budget. Wall Street is the epicenter of the global financial crisis and there likely will be no quick rebound from what could prove to be a severe recession.
We applaud the leadership you have shown in tackling the state's budget crisis head on. We agree with you that the federal government has an obligation to New York and all the states in providing substantial fiscal relief to help state governments maintain essential public services during this crisis.
We are concerned, however, that steep state budget cuts will exacerbate the economic downturn and harm vulnerable low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Constrained by a balanced budget imperative, states face only difficult choices in balancing their budgets during recessions. Economic theory and historical experience gives a clear and unambiguous answer: it is economically preferable to raise taxes on those with high incomes than to cut state expenditures.
The reasoning is straightforward: in a recession, you want to raise (or not decrease) the level of total spending-by households, businesses and government-in the economy. That keeps people employed and buying things, and makes it more likely that businesses will want to invest to serve that consumer demand. Budget cuts reduce the level of total spending. Raising taxes on high income households also will reduce spending, but by much less than the amount of the tax increase since those with plenty of income typically spend only a fraction of their income.
By contrast, almost every dollar of state and local government spending on transfer payments to the needy and for the salaries of public servants providing vital services to our communities enters the local economy right away, generating a greater economic impact. The New York local spending impact difference is even greater when you consider that much of the higher state income tax will be deductible against federal income taxes, and that non-residents who commute to high-paying jobs in New York will pay much of the increase.
Raising taxes and maintaining public expenditures and investments also helps New York and America in meeting its long run needs. America today faces two major problems-inadequate investments, especially in infrastructure, and growing inequality. The poor are particularly dependent on government expenditures, and cutbacks would hurt them the most.
Our nation is at an historic juncture. In both Washington and Albany, we need to move away from polarization and toward economic and fiscal policies that restore a better balance between the private and public sectors.
Signed,
Radhika Balakrishnan Marymount Manhattan College Erol Balkan Hamilton College Christopher Barrett Cornell University William J. Baumol New York University Nathaniel Beck New York University Peter Bell Purchase College, SUNY Lourdes Beneria Cornell University Howard Botwinick SUNY Cortland Murray Brown SUNY Buffalo (Emeritus) Martha Campbell SUNY Potsdam Howard Chernick Hunter College, CUNY Robert Cherry Brooklyn College, CUNY Kenny Christianson Binghamton University Susan Christopherson Cornell University Drew A. Claxton NERA Economic Consulting Mary E. Cleveland Columbia University Joseph DaBoll-Lavoie Nazareth College of Rochester Susan M. Davis Buffalo State College Gregory DeFreitas Hofstra University Ranjit S. Dighe SUNY Oswego Matthew P. Drennan New York University (Visiting) Ronald G. Ehrenberg Cornell University Marianne Fahs Hunter College, CUNY Gary Fields Cornell University Frederick G. Floss Buffalo State College Marc Fox Brooklyn College, CUNY Robert H. Frank Cornell University Janet L. Frankl SUNY Oneonta Chris Georges Hamilton College Teresa Ghilarducci The New School Ulla Grapard Colgate University Wayne A. Grove LeMoyne College and Syracuse University Alan Haight SUNY Cortland Greg Hannsgen Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Doug Henwood Left Business Observer Barry Herman The New School (Visiting) Conrad M. Herold Hofstra University Joan Hoffman John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY Naphtali Hoffman Elmira College David L. Howell The New School Michael Hudson Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends Dene T. Hurley Lehman College, CUNY Joseph Jamison New York State AFL-CIO Elizabeth J. Jensen Hamilton College Tae-Hee Jo Buffalo State College Alfred E. Kahn NERA Economic Consulting John Kane SUNY Oswego Victor Kasper Buffalo State College Christa K. Kelson SUNY Canton Feisal Khan Hobart & William Smith College J. Douglass Klein Union College Feridoon Koohi-Kamali Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Douglas Koritz Buffalo State College Brent Kramer CUNY Laurence Kranich University at Albany, SUNY Rachel Kreier Hofstra University Henry M. Levin Columbia University John C. LeVine LeVine Capital Group Mark Levinson UNITE-HERE Winston T. Lin SUNY Buffalo Jeff Madrick The New School and Challenge Magazine Jay Mandle Colgate University Stanley Masters Binghamton University Thomas Masterson Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Michele Mattingly Fiscal Policy Institute Roberto Mazzoleni Hofstra University S. Diane McFarland Buffalo State College Rex McKenzie Purchase College, SUNY Martin Melkonian Hofstra University Jo Beth Mertens Hobart & William Smith College Thomas Michl Colgate University George Monokroussos University at Albany, SUNY Joseph C. Morreale Pace University Thomas Muench SUNY Stony Brook Michael Musuraca District Council 37, AFSCME Matthew G. Nagler City College, CUNY Matthew Neidell Columbia University Michael Nuwer SUNY Potsdam Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Levy Economics Institute of Bard College James Parrott Fiscal Policy Institute M. Stephen Pendleton Buffalo State College Paddy Quick St. Francis College, Brooklyn Lawrence E. Raffalovich University at Albany, SUNY Michael H. Riordan Columbia University Carl Riskin Queens College, CUNY Leonard Rodberg Queens College, CUNY Roy Rotheim Skidmore College Elliott Sclar Columbia University Naveen Seth Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology Gautam Sethi Bard Center for Environmental Policy Amarendra Sharma Elmira College Richard L. Shirey Siena College Shao-Chee Sim Ph.D. Curtis Skinner Pelliparius Consulting Brad Smith AFSCME, Local 375 Robert Smith Cornell University Paul Smoke New York University Alexander M. Thompson III Vassar College Erik Thorbecke Cornell University (Emeritus) Renee Toback Ph.D. John F. Tomer Manhattan College Christina L. Trees SUNY Cobleskill W. Scott Trees Siena College Dimitrios Tsaprounis THEORI Robert W. Turner Colgate University A. Dale Tussing Syracuse University Leanne Ussher Queens College, CUNY David Weiman Barnard College Lawrence J. White New York University Susan Wieler Citizens' Committee for Children of New York Edward Wolff New York University Max Fraad Wolff The New School Andrew Wyler-David Purchase College, SUNY June Zaccone Hofstra University (Emerita) Ajit Zacharias Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Paul Zarembka SUNY Buffalo Michael Zweig SUNY Stony Brook
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From: mkd67@aol.com
[Ron Deutsch New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness 212 Great Oaks Blvd Albany, NY 12203
518-452-2130 518-869-8649 (fax) 518-469-6769 (cell)
Subject: re: NYFF statement on budget
For immediate release: Contact:
December 16, 2008 Ron Deutsch (518) 469-6769
Governor Paterson Talks of "Shared Sacrifice" but
his Budget Suggests "Spared Sacrifice"
New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness is disappointed that the Governor decided to allow working class New Yorkers to shoulder the burden of this budget deficit. While the Governor calls for "shared sacrifice," his budget seems to allow for mostly "spared sacrifice." Increasing fees and enormous cuts in state spending on education, healthcare, and state services could be mitigated if the Governor had simply chosen to listen to the people of New York State who have been calling for an income tax increase on the wealthiest 5% of New Yorkers. Poll after poll shows that New Yorkers support an increase in the top tax rates of the wealthiest state residents.
Yesterday, over 100 Economists from around the state urged the Governor to adopt a balanced approach to closing the state deficit. They suggest that an income tax increase on the wealthiest would be less harmful to the state's economy then massive cuts to state spending. They posit that we need to keep as much money in the local economy as possible in order to effectively get out of this recession and close the budget gap.
A comprehensive solution means that all New Yorkers need to help solve this problem and that the wealthiest among us have an even greater obligation to contribute. We fear that the Governor's budget will continue to shift more costs to the county level and leave it up to the property tax payers in NYS to make up the difference. The governor says that he fears that wealthy New Yorkers will leave the state if we increase income taxes on the rich. We believe what will drive people out of NYS are bad schools, deteriorating hospitals, and dirty streets. This budget will cause a deterioration in the quality of life for many working families in NYS that could be avoided by asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share of taxes.
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[recall below sent out on this Dec. 18th]
Re: state budget-- don't drink neoliberal Kool-Aid; fact: 78% of us for millionaire's tax!...
Despite Paterson's quoting FDR recently, fact is that FDR did not get us out of depression w/layoffs...
"The middle class will have to pay more and get less while the wealthiest New Yorkers slide by under the Governor's proposal," said CSEA President Danny Donohue. "There is no sharing of the sacrifice here - it's working people getting stuck with the bill." [from today's Poughkeepsie Journal re: budget]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081216/NEWS12/81216007&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
The richest 1% of Dutchess County residents are now getting more than $90,000 a year in federal tax breaks compared to what they paid four years ago, according to Citizens for Tax Justice-- http://www.CTJ.org -- while the rest of us are getting killed with excessive property taxes that are roughly 70% higher than the national average, according to the Citizens Budget Commission...
############################################
[recall below sent out to e-list Dec. 20th]
Re: income tax/property tax mix: see today's "Valley Views" < Habitat for Humanity President...
Hi all...
Check out the great op-ed piece below from today's Poughkeepsie Journal!...
Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County President Rich Taylor hits the nail squarely on the head-- calling for shifting burden of funding crucial government services towards income taxes-- in order to slash property taxes...(as I've been calling for for many years-- well over 150 folks across county signed on to http://www.Petitiononline.com/Fairness ; 35 also on board http://www.petitiononline.com/stopcuts ;
http://www.petitiononline.com/fairtax ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FAIRTAX )...
[of course this is same message as at http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org , http://www.FiscalPolicy.org ]
I've reached out to Taylor in hopes of collaborating w/him to put together countywide forum on this issue asap in Poughkeepsie (perhaps in Co. Leg. chambers Jan./Feb.): let us know if you want to help!...
From http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008812200306 , then...
Valley Views: Tax Income, Not Property
BY RICH TAYLOR * DECEMBER 20, 2008
[Rich Taylor is President of Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County.]
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."
- John F. Kennedy
Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County has been trying unsuccessfully to qualify a family for a house to be built on Garden Street or Thompson Street in the City of Poughkeepsie for the past four years.
We can qualify families for a house, which may have a mortgage payment of less than $300 per month, but when we add in the escrow of school tax, property tax and homeowners insurance, plus utilities, they fail to qualify.
Mind you, we are working with families in the $35,000 to $40,000 range. If we move to a higher range, they most likely will not be living in substandard housing.
It is becoming harder and harder to help families who truly need to help due to the unfair and antiquated taxing system in New York state. In the past three years, two of our families have failed and their houses were put up for foreclosure.
Our mission is to eliminate substandard housing, but with our present system, our hands are tied.
We need to base school and property taxes on income, not on homeownership. With such a system, taxes would be spread among all who bring home a paycheck. New York state has the lowest owner-occupied households in the country, but has the highest school and property taxes.
We need to change this system now, so every family seeking the American dream can realize it with a simple, decent and safe home to raise their children to be upstanding citizens.
"If you don't like change," U.S. Gen. Eric Shinseki said, "you're going to like irrelevance even less."
A few of the advantages of a income-based tax system I feel would be: general taxes would decrease, more students would complete high school and go on to college, drugs and street crime would decrease, all health costs would go down, there would be fewer foreclosures and the elderly would not be taxed out of their homes.
There are many more benefits than I have room for in this column. One most important item is that Habitat could take a leading part in eliminating poverty housing in Dutchess County, and I believe it can be done.
If you agree with changing the present system of taxation, please contact me at Shelter3 @aol.com. I would like to hear your thoughts. With a strong group, we can change the tax structure in New York state for the benefit of all.
As Margaret Mead said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
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As I stated at last Tuesday night's Co. Leg. meeting, I've been watching the county budget process now for over a decade here in Dutchess County, and every single year it comes down to keeping the property tax too high, keeping our sales tax too high, underfunding crucial county services, or laying people off-- it doesn't have to be this way, folks...(see http://www.totalwebcasting.com/live/dutchess/ )...
[example-- waiting list still exists for cost-saving senior home care-- $24,000 cut still needs to be remedied; see: "No Need for Nursing Home if PACE Handles Senior Care" (USA Today 11/17/08)--
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-16-PACE_N.htm countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us!]
It really might be worth the while of our County Legislature to at least allow a referendum sooner or later on a local income tax to slash property taxes-- while making sure that crucial services are funded!...
[kudos to former Co. Leg. (and Co. Exec candidate) Fred Bunnell for having moxie enough to be for this]
Recall-- Yonkers and New York City have local-level income taxes, with revenue collected by Albany through state income tax forms that is then given back to those localities-- it wouldn't be hard to add our county to that list...and Newsday, many Nassau County business leaders, the Chair of the Tompkins County Legislature, and many in Monroe County have endorsed similar plans there; Rockland and Tompkins County Legislatures started study commissions to look at similar revenue alternatives...
Recall-- the way our tax system is now, middle income New Yorkers now pay literally about twice the state and local taxes that the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay as a percentage of income because of unfair tax shifts to the local level over the last few decades-- it's high time we worked to restore at least just a bit of progressivity and fairness into our tax code, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, as Assemblyman Kevin Cahill himself has repeatedly pointed out in his speeches at Dutchess County Democratic Committee Issues Forums over the last few years...
[see http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm ; http://www.itepnet.org/pb41pit.pdf ;
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/state-tax-issues/new-york/ ]
Not to be overlooked-- 5 important facts from http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org/topten_mil.html :
[massive Better Choice Budget Coalition website-- faith groups, nonprofits, unions]
"The poorest New Yorkers pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes than do millionaires (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). Top income tax rates for the wealthiest have been reduced from 15.375% to 6.85% over the last 25 years (Division of Budget). Since 2003, people making over $200,000 per year have seen their income grow by 108% while those under $200,000 have seen their income grow by only 15% (Division of Budget). Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says it is better for state's economy to increase taxes on the wealthy rather than to cut spending on goods and services purchased locally. Quinnipiac poll August 6th: 78% of New Yorkers support a millionaire's tax to avoid local tax hikes and service cuts."
[see http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1198 ]
[Even G.O.P. state legislators Joel Miller, Marc Molinaro, John Bonacic all have this in common-- they have all advocated for raising income taxes (rather drastically) as way to cut property taxes...re: Miller on this see: http://assembly.state.ny.us/member_files/102/20060628/ ; re: Molinaro, see:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081021/NEWS01/810210323 ; re: Bonacic's local plan-- http://blog.syracuse.com/cayugacounty/2007/02/residents_seek_tax_relief.html .]
[Again-- Assemblymember Kevin Cahill has put forth the best bill-- the Equity in Education Act; see:
http://kevincahillny.com/news_detail.php?news_id=6 ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FAIRTAX .]
The point here is this-- that the income tax hikes proposed by Republicans Miller, Molinaro, and Bonacic (and Cahill) pale in comparison to local income tax hike possible to cut county property taxes...
Frank Mauro, Exec Dir. for the Fiscal Policy Institute, has done the following computations for Dutchess: http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/dutchessRPTlevies.htm ; http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/dutchess1999and2000.htm ; http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/dutchess2001.htm ;
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/ImpactatDifferentIncomeLevels.htm ...
"The calculations of the reduction in the county property tax levy that could be accomplished with a 10% surcharge on the income tax (that's a surcharge on a taxpayer's state income tax bill, not a surcharge on the taxpayer's income) assume a reduction in all property taxes (including business's property taxes)."
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From "Plenty of Pain To Go Around in State Budget" (Dec. 17th Daily Freeman AP story on this)...
[see http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/17/news/doc4948840c21870766305773.txt ]
The plan includes cutting school aid by 3.3 percent, or $698 million; increasing SUNY and CUNY tuition by 14 and 15 percent, respectively;
Paterson's plan also calls for cutting 3,108 jobs from the state workforce of 196,000. Attrition would account for most of the reduction, but the proposal includes 521 layoffs in 2009-10, largely through consolidating state offices.
Paterson: "In his inaugural address, President Franklin Roosevelt told a nation in the grips of the Great Depression that now is 'the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly,'" the Democratic governor said. "He warned the American people must not shrink from 'honestly facing' the dark reality of the country," Paterson said. "Today, we, too, cannot shrink from the challenges ahead."
"The governor has shifted the unbearable burden of closing the budget gap onto the shoulders of school children, while sparing the wealthiest New Yorkers," said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education. AQE supported a tax on New Yorkers making over $1 million, which Paterson has so far rejected.
School districts and the New York State Association of Counties have warned that reduced state funding, more unfunded mandates like a 2010 hike in the welfare grant that Paterson proposes, and even flat funding could force higher local property taxes.
"The spending reductions in this budget proposal are painful," said NYSAC President Sarah Purdy. "County leaders are engaged in this process and are willing to work through this crisis together with the governor and state Legislature to continue essential services in a way that does not increase the burden on New York's taxpayers."
[also see http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/December08/16/Gov_Budget-16Dec08.htm ]
Note one silver lining to Paterson budget (to his credit, this is part of Better Choice Budget):
"Crack down on failings of the state's Empire Zone program, which provides tax breaks to companies in exchange for creating or retaining jobs. Paterson wants to cut the program in half by requiring companies already getting big, multiyear tax breaks to prove they have created jobs they promised. These actions would be expected to save $272 million in 2009-10 and $292 million in 2010-11."
[from http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/doc49484176818ec606532126.txt ]
I've spent the last fifteen years as a community activist here in Dutchess trying to get out the truth about taxes and our state budget-- see http://www.FiscalPolicy.org , http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org -- yet again, this year as with the past fifteen years the local media by and large ignore fundamental truths...
[...so pass this email along to all you know!...(and call state legislators today at (877) 255-9417!)...]
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
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[recall below sent out to this list Nov. 25th]
Help Pete Wassell, Tom Mansfield, Bill McCabe, Steve White stand up for tax fairness!...
Tired of watching crucial services face cutbacks year after year here in Dutchess County and across the state-- while our local property taxes seem to skyrocket higher and higher through the roof?...(I am)...
[recall http://www.petitiononline.com/stopcuts for reminder on atrocious choices facing us in Co. Leg.;
re: proposed state budget cuts we're out of frying pan, not out of fire, folks-- send message on this now]
There's a better way-- help get our County Legislature to pass resolution for the Better Choice Budget!...
[thanx to Pete Wassell, Tom Mansfield, Bill McCabe, Steve White-- co-sponsoring my resolution below]
Letters needed now on this to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us;
Thanks to all sixteen folks who came out to our press conference last week for Better Choice Budget:
Dutchess Outreach Executive Director Brian Riddell: "We've seen a twenty percent increase in folks looking for assistance from our food pantry over the last six months; state funding for our food programs as it is right now already have been cut by six percent this year on top of a five-percent cut in state funding last year. Dutchess County DSS Commissioner Bob Allers shared with many of us in different agencies last week that further state budget cuts proposed would devastate local child care programs for those trying to move off welfare into work"...
[Jen Fuentes/Brittany Turner/Jessica Damrath/Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation: big no to cuts too!]
County Legislator Peter Wassell (D-Dover) spoke how truly common-sense the proposals of the Better Choice Budget Coalition are to address the state's budget woes-- a return to a more progressive tax system in New York, as even former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno worked with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to make happen during the last large, looming state budget deficit in 2003. Wassell also recognized how rational and reasonable it is for the Better Choice Budget Coalition to be pushing to save hundreds of millions of dollars for NYS taxpayers by bargaining down the cost of prescription drugs and closing unfair tax loopholes...
Jonathan Smith, Democratic candidate for Assembly for the 102nd A.D., spoke about how unfair and misguided proposals are to underfund our schools, libraries, and health care, and how our state's leaders need to put the burden for funding these necessary functions of government back a bit more on millionaires with the millionaire's tax...
Bob Selcov and Carol Richmond from Legal Services of the Hudson Valley spoke of huge and long-lasting impact proposed state budget cuts will have on victims of domestic violence they serve...
Long-time community activists Mae Parker-Harris, Judy Green, and Marta Knapp spoke about how ridiculously unfair, unnecessary, and destructive two billion dollars more in state budget cuts would be, as low-income folks for a while now have had to try to get with more and more cutbacks in services, forcing them to live on less and less; Joanna Klein of the Dutchess County Arts Council spoke as well...
Fact: FDR didn't get us out of Depression w/big budget cuts. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal ]
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics (recently appointed chairman of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors), explains in his March 2008 letter to Governor Paterson and Legislative leaders that an increase in the tax on the portions of families' incomes over some relatively high level is the least damaging
mechanism for balancing state budgets during recessions. In contrast, cuts in government spending on goods and services that are produced locally (like education and healthcare) and cuts in transfer payments to lower-income families are most damaging to the economy since they come closest to taking dollar for dollar out of the local economy.
So-- one last time; up to you all now-- zip off a note on this now to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us!
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
[again-- for much, much more on this, see: http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org ;
http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/3306788.php? ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS02/811130326&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130333 ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130334 ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130330 ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130331 ]
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[won't happen without you folks-- send letter to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us to get on agenda!]
WHEREAS, we here in Dutchess County once again have been confronted this year with the untenable choice of witnessing massive cuts to our county budget, underfunding county services, layoffs, or raising property taxes; these problems will only get worse until state budget revenue problems are solved, and
WHEREAS, the Better Choice Budget Coalition is made up of over a hundred different nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups, and labor unions across New York, including Dutchess Outreach, New York State AFL-CIO, New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, New York Statewide Senior Action Council, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Environmental Advocates of New York State, Citizens Environmental Coalition, The Interfaith Alliance of NYS, AFSCME New York, Citizen Action of New York State, Civil Service Employees Association, Hunger Action Network of NYS, MicroBizNewYork, New York Jobs with Justice, New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, New York State Community Action Association, New York State Episcopal Public Policy Network, New York State Labor Religion Coalition, New York State United Teachers, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Nutrition Consortium of NYS, Public Employees Federation, Public Utility Law Project, and dozens of other organizations across the state, and
WHEREAS, the Better Choice Budget Coalition has long called for the following common-sense revenue recommendations to be put into place in order to avoid property taxes going up when the burden for funding necessary government programs is unfairly shifted even more to the local level:
-- First, restore progressivity and fairness to New York's personal income tax (place additional tax brackets on the highest-income New Yorkers, as was done in bipartisan fashion during the 2003 economic crisis (this simple solution could yield between $4.3 to $6 billion depending on income levels and rates), and collect taxes that are due-especially cigarette taxes on reservation purchases by non-Indians (yield estimates range from $400 million to $1.6 billion a year);
-- Second, close the bottle bill loophole so the state receives deposits from unreturned bottles rather than the industry keeping the money (this would yield approximately $200 million per year), and reform or eliminate economic development programs to level the playing field among businesses in New York improve the effectiveness and accountability of Industrial Development Agencies, apply Brownfield Clean Up Program reforms to "grandfathered" projects and save up to $500 million, and
-- Third, close corporate tax loopholes by improving the way limited liability corporations' annual fees are calculated (for which NYS Division of Budget calculated $75 million/year in savings in 2007) and close other corporate tax loopholes; lower prescription drug prices by using the state's tremendous purchasing power to see reduced prices from drug manufacturers for prescription drugs for Medicaid, state employees, and other state programs (this could yield $100 million or more per year), and reduce the use of costly consultants receiving sweetheart contracts, hired to do work that state workers can and should be doing (this will yield savings of $250-$500 million), and therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature requests that our state legislators work with Governor David Paterson to implement the seven common-sense recommendations of the Better Choice Budget Coalition, in order to avoid local tax hikes, cuts in school aid, health care, service cuts, breaking of contractual promises, pay cuts, a cut to the Environmental Protection Fund, and layoffs here in Dutchess County and across New York, and be it further
RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be sent to Governor David Paterson, State Senators Vincent Leibell and Stephen Saland, and Assemblymembers Greg Ball, Kevin Cahill, Tom Kirwan, Joel Miller, and Marcus Molinaro.
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More crucial oft-overlooked facts:
We have a rainy day fund ($1.039 billion) to use as a cushion against many of the proposed mid-year cuts.
It would be irresponsible to make these cuts before we know what a federal fiscal relief package from Washington means for NYS
Need to put this off and have these deliberations as part of the budget process which will be started early this year (December 16, 2008)
Need to preserve vital state services and programs as demand for these services is going up - need to protect New York's most vulnerable families
Made new commitments over the last few years without new revenues - state spending is not out of control!
During an economic downturn it is better for the economy to raise taxes on the wealthiest rather than cutting services for the poorest
[re: above-- recall-- from Pok. Journal Oct. 30th-- "Jobs Growth in Dutchess 'Lackluster'" by Craig Wolf:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081030/BUSINESS/81030012 ]
Seven more key points from massive http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org coalition:
* Restore progressivity and fairness to New York's personal income tax:
Place additional tax brackets on the highest-income New Yorkers, as was done during the
2003 economic crisis. This simple solution could yield between $4.3 to $6 billion,
depending on income levels and rates. (A chart below from the Fiscal Policy Institute
lays out some possible scenarios.)
* Collect taxes that are due-especially cigarette taxes on reservation purchases
by non-Indians. Yield estimates range from $400 million to $1.6 billion a year.
* Close the bottle bill loophole so the state receives deposits from unreturned
bottles rather than the industry keeping the money. This would yield
approximately $200 million per year.
* Reform or eliminate economic development programs to level the playing
field among businesses in NYS:
o Improve the effectiveness and accountability of Industrial Development Agencies
o Apply Brownfield Clean Up Program reforms to "grandfathered" projects
and save up to $500 million
o Phase out or eliminate the Empire Zones program. Savings begin at $50
million per year, rising to $500 million after 10 years.
* Close corporate tax loopholes: Improve the way limited liability corporations'
annual fees are calculated (for which DOB calculated $75 million/year in savings
in 2007) and close other corporate tax loopholes.
* Lower prescription drug prices: Use the state's tremendous purchasing power
to see reduced prices from drug manufacturers for prescription drugs for
Medicaid, state employees, and other state programs. This could yield $100
million or more per year.
* Reduce the use of costly consultants receiving sweetheart contracts-hired to
do work that state workers can and should be doing. This will yield savings of
$250-$500 million.
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From http://www.abetterchoiceforny.org/topten_mil.html ...(see http://www.FiscalPolicy.org for more)...
TOP TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT THE "MILLIONAIRES TAX"
1.The poorest New Yorkers pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes than do millionaires (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)
2. Top income tax rates for the wealthiest have been reduced from 15.375% to 6.85% over the last 25 years (Division of Budget)
3. Since 2003, people making over $200,000 per year have seen their income grow by 108% while those under $200,000 have seen their income grow by only 15% (Division of Budget)
4. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says it is better for state's economy to increase taxes on the wealthy rather than to cut spending on goods and services purchased locally.
5. The Tax cuts enacted over the last 20 years have reduced state revenues by $16 billion per year (Division of Budget)
6. Since you can deduct state taxes from your federal return the feds would pick up 1/3 of the cost (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy).
7. 78 percent of New York voters support it (Quinnipiac Poll - 8/06/08)
[see http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1198 ]
8. Warren Buffet (the world's richest man) says he does not pay enough in taxes (Google)
9. Senator Bruno and Speaker Silver agreed in 2003 that increasing taxes (from 6.85% to 7.7%) on people with incomes over $500,000 was the best way to close the budget gap, and they and their members did so over Governor Pataki's veto
10. In 2005, there were 61,300 taxpayers with NYS-AGI incomes in excess of $1,000,000. Of those, 51% were full year NYS residents, and 49% were full year nonresidents (live in another state)
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Fact: The richest 1% of New Yorkers are also now paying about half the income taxes to Albany as they did three decades ago under Rockefeller (when our local property taxes weren't nearly so high-- real shift to local level hadn't begun yet). Read "A Little Bit of Tax History-- The Path Not Taken: How New York State Increased the Tax Burden on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for its Highest Income Taxpayers by Over $8 Billion a Year" by Frank Mauro-- at http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/taxhistory2.htm ...
The richest 1% of Dutchess County residents are now getting more than $90,000 a year in federal tax breaks compared to what they paid four years ago, according to Citizens for Tax Justice-- http://www.CTJ.org .
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More from New Yorker for Fiscal Fairness Exec. Dir. Ron Deutsch (mkd67@aol.com)...
Subject: Better Choice and One New York respond to Gov's cuts
Dear Friends:
Wanted to let you know that yesterday was a great day for our coalition partners in the Better Choice Budget Campaign and the One New York: Fighting for Fairness Coalition. We were able to pull off press conferences in Buffalo, Rochester, Binghamton, Utica, Albany, Poughkeepsie, Long Island and New York City today. It was difficult to coordinate all of these events but with the help of our dedicated members we were able to pull it off. My thanks to all of you that participated/planned these events across the state. Our partners were able to get great coverage across the state - all have reported that they each had some TV coverage and print coverage (some did radio as well). The statewide event in Albany was also a success. It helped that the Governor held his press conference on the same day as we planned ours. Made our message very relevant.
Thanks again for all of your support!
Please sign on to the Better Choice Budget Campaign; if you have not signed up yet this year please consider doing so now!...[see http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org ]
Is State spending really out of control?
What the Governor and Division of Budget fail to acknowledge is that the State has made some important (and expensive) new commitments in the last several years without any new revenue streams to pay for them:
* Family Health Plus Takeover and Medicaid Cap - $1 billion this year; $1.35 next year and $2.5 billion in 2010-11
* STAR - From $2.5 billion in 2001-02 to $6.0 billion in 2010-11
* CFE Settlement - $5.5 billion in new foundation aid by 2010-11 and Facilities investment in 2005-06 budget.
* $1.2 billion in cash and tax abatements originally going to AMD - now being awarded to "The Foundry" company owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi (very oil rich country) that will have their headquarters in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxation.
Additionally, according to research from the Fiscal Policy Institute, state spending in areas other than health, education, STAR, and transportation grew by less than 3% a year from 2004 to 2008.
Why Use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund
The Governor also lays out reasons why we should not use the state's reserve funds to close the mid-year budget gap. Of primary concern is the fear of exhausting state reserves, as well as the triggering of a downgrade in the state's credit rating. Most importantly he states, a large one-shot action, such as the use of reserves, does nothing to address our state's looming out-year deficits.
We strongly recommend using the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund (TSRF). It is specifically for unplanned end of year deficits and totals $1.039 billion. It is an important backstop or cushion for getting through the current fiscal year without making $2 billion in cuts to vital services, as the Governor has proposed.
Using the TSRF also provides the state the time to have a well-informed debate over expenditures and revenues in the 2009-10 state budget. This would allow the debates to be more deliberative than usual since the Governor will be proposing his Executive Budget on December 16, 2008, which is 5 weeks earlier than required.
The Legislature cannot pass a law transferring money from the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund to the General Fund, nor can it pass a law requiring the Governor to use the money from this fund. The Governor simply has to borrow the amount needed from it on March 31, 2008, if disbursements exceed receipts and money available to make those disbursements.
The Governor and the Legislature should not make more cuts during the current fiscal year than are necessary, given this $1 billion cushion. And, most importantly, the state should not make additional cuts in services until we know the size and scope of a possible federal relief package from Washington.
Ron
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Contact: Ron Deutsch, NYFF 518-469-6769
Karen Schimke, SCAA, 518-463-1895 x25
Billy Easton, AQE, 518-461-9171
Anne Erickson, EJC, 518-462-6831
OVER 200 NON PROFITS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, UNIONS AND FAITH-BASED GROUPS TO GOVERNOR PATERSON: CUTS ALONE WILL DEVASTATE NEW YORK'S FUTURE
Groups Providing Critical State Services Call on Paterson to Stop Exempting Wealthy New Yorkers from Budget Pain and to Use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund to Fill the Gap!
(Albany, N.Y)- On the day Governor Paterson is announcing billions in budget cuts, the Better Choice Budget Campaign and the One New York: Fighting for Fairness joined together to call on the Governor and legislative leaders to abandon a budget policy that calls on working families and vulnerable New Yorkers to bear the burden of the state's fiscal crisis.
Together the two coalitions represent more than 200 non-profit organizations, faith-based groups, service providers and unions that supply front line services to many of New York's most vulnerable citizens. The two coalitions called on Paterson to examine revenue options rather than gutting services to close the state's huge budget gap. Similar events are also occurring today in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Binghamton, and in Central Islip on Long Island.
The groups called on Paterson to use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund (a "Rainy Day Fund" that currently has $1.039 billion) to bridge the mid-year budget gap, to wait for a state fiscal relief package from Washington before making massive cuts in services, and to ask the wealthiest New Yorkers to take part in the "shared sacrifice as we did in 2003.
"Today, more than ever before, the economic crisis has placed a great burden on the average New York family," said Phillip H. Smith, President of United University Professions, the union that represents 35,000 State University of New York faculty and professional staff. "Tens of thousands of qualified high school graduates and community college transfer applicants from moderate income families are denied admission to SUNY four-year colleges and universities. These institutions no longer have the funding needed to provide the faculty and professional staff to teach and counsel them. SUNY's budget has already been slashed by $148 million this year, and any further cuts would be disastrous. We must protect access to higher education for students who cannot afford private colleges, and SUNY is the only hope many students have to achieve a college education. Reducing state support for SUNY disenfranchises New York's most vulnerable families. It not only to limit their children's opportunity for a productive career, but also limits the state's opportunity to develop an educated workforce, which would speed our economic recovery."
"The Pubic Employees Federation (PEF) had identified several options to help close the budget gaps that will avoid layoffs and damaging cuts to public services," said PEF President Ken Brynien. "In this fiscal crisis it is more important than ever to make sure New York's taxpayers get the best value for their tax dollars. The state could save up to $750 million a year by reducing the use of private consultants by instituting a freeze on all new consultant contracts, requiring a budget waiver to enter into those contracts and by examining all current consultant contracts to determine which can be terminated and which can be done by state employees at a lower cost."
"The Governor's notion of shared sacrifice seems to leave the wealthiest New Yorkers out of the equation, stated Ron Deutsch, executive director, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness. "This is very strange since the Governor believed in a balanced approach to closing the budget deficit in 2003, when he voted to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers rather than slash funding for programs and services to those most in need of state assistance. During that time, then-Senate Minority Leader Paterson helped the Legislature override the Governor's vetoes on tax increases for the wealthy because he understood that the budget could not be balanced on the backs of working families. Now, however, Governor Paterson seems to have flip-flopped, employing the same approach and rhetoric as Governor Pataki in 2003, when the state was faced with an $11.5 billion deficit."
The tax increases put in place in 2003 did not have the negative impact on the state's economy, or on the number of high-income taxpayers in the state, that Governor Pataki predicted in vetoing the Legislature's budget bills. In fact, the number of high-income returns grew steadily from about 245,000 in 2002 to an estimated 430,000 in 2007, and employment in the state increased each year that the temporary surcharge was in place. The wealthiest New Yorkers (over $200,000) also saw their incomes increase 108% between 2003-2008 (those below $200,000 only saw an increase of 15% over the same time period).
"New Yorkers can't afford mid-year cuts to education and health care. We need to follow President-elect Obama's lead, and address the fiscal crisis by asking the wealthiest New Yorkers to pay their fair share," Karen Scharff, executive director, Citizen Action of NYS.
"New York is facing hard times. However, poor and low income families are facing even harder times. They are struggling to meet their children's basic needs. Parents are struggling to keep their jobs, a roof over their children's heads, put food on the table, heat their homes and keep gas in the car. New York must be vigilant in protecting children as difficult budget decisions are being made. We join in calling for utilization of the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund until federal relief can be realized stated Karen Schimke, Executive Director, Schuyler Center for Advocacy and Analysis.
"In difficult economic times, when tough decisions need to be made about how to close deficits, we must always be guided by the principle that the state not balance the budget on the backs of those most in need," said Richard E. Barnes, executive director of the Catholic Conference. "While the Catholic Conference has not taken a position on which revenue streams should be tapped, it is clear that the options being presented must be considered. We are here to stress the importance of keeping in mind that those who have no voice - the very poor and vulnerable - are most in need of the state's limited resources. Put simply, those who need the most help should be last in line for cuts."
"We are calling on Governor Paterson and legislative leaders to recognize what a mistake it would be to cut critical programs any further. Programs like civil legal services for the poor are part of our state's social safety net and have already been cut by over 50% this year. Civil legal services are essential in saving the state money by averting crisis - helping obtain unemployment benefits, avoid homelessness and ensure access to basic needs supports like food stamps. Further cuts would be both financially and socially irresponsible," said Anne Erickson, president & CEO of Empire Justice Center.
"In times of economic calamity, the state must protect vital services like health care, emergency assistance, education and college assistance -- lifelines for so many New Yorkers. Those hardest hit by the current crisis depend on these programs for survival. Deep budget cuts, like those being discussed in Albany, will lead to thousands of layoffs at a time when unemployment is rapidly rising -- exactly what the economy doesn't need," said New York State United Teachers President Richard C. Iannuzzi. "While government is indeed obligated to look at cost-savings, there are other alternatives it should pursue first to fix New York's budget mess. We ask lawmakers to take a much harder look at increasing revenues. After all, essential services haven't exceeded their budget; revenues have fallen short."
"New York State has a constitutional obligation to provide the funding needed to educate every child. After years of court orders in the CFE case, the Governor & both houses of the legislature made a promise in law to provide the dollars our school children need. The idea that the Governor would break this promise and cut education funding in order to keep his promise to New York's highest income earners not to raise their taxes is not only unfair, it is unreasonable." Billy Easton, executive director, Alliance for Quality Education.
"Medicaid provides a lifeline for low-income New Yorkers and it must be protected. The state should not be attempting to cut its way out of this crisis by putting the health care safety net in jeopardy. We must continue the 'patient-first' health care agenda, and more wisely spend our health care dollars. Medicaid is not just about hospitals, it is first and foremost about people," stated Lara Kassel, advocacy coordinator, Medicaid Matters NY.
"Voters throughout New York and the United States made it clear on Election Day that they wanted change. We hope Governor Paterson was listening. They're tired of politicians who bail out Wall Street while the poor and middle class are threatened with the loss of their homes and don't have enough to feed their families. Even Republican voters in NY believe that millionaires deserve a tax hike. When times are bad, you need to stimulate the economy by putting more money, not less, in the hands of those struggling to make ends meet. And with the life savings of so many New Yorkers have been flooded away by the misbehavior of Wall Street financiers, this certainly seems like the time for the state to dip into our rainy day fund," said Mark Dunlea, executive director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State.
"The Wall Street Meltdown was not created by working men and women and they must not be forced to bear the burnt of New York State's Budget Crisis. Destruction of the public workforce, schools, state services and health care would leave our state with a terrible economy, hasten our decline and dramatically impact the ability of small businesses to survive. The state must be more realistic in its solutions to repair the budget shortfalls. Just as the federal government has moved quickly to support the financial sector with almost a trillion dollars, so too must Washington provide the assistance necessary for New York State and other states," said the statement from Alan Lubin, executive vice-president of NYSUT and Bruce Ventimiglia, President and Chief Executive Officer of Saratoga Capital Management, LLC : Co- Chairmen : BALCONY : The Business and Labor Coalition of New York.
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics (recently appointed chairman of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors), explains in his March 2008 letter to Governor Paterson and Legislative leaders that an increase in the tax on the portions of families' incomes over some relatively high level is the least damaging mechanism for balancing state budgets during recessions. In contrast, cuts in government spending on goods and services that are produced locally (like education and health care) and cuts in transfer payments to lower-income families are most damaging to the economy, as they come closest to taking dollar for dollar out of the local economy.
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From http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/17/news/doc4948840c21870766305773.txt ...
Plenty of pain to go around in state budget
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 3:06 AM EST
By The Associated Pres
Associated Press
ALBANY - Gov. David Paterson is calling New Yorkers and almost every business sector to pitch in for at least the next couple of years to end what he calls the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
His play book is a proposed 2009-10 budget of $121.1 billion, which includes layoffs, reduced school aid, 88 new or higher fees and the early release of 1,600 inmates.
The proposal that Paterson released to the state Legislature on Tuesday - his first since taking office - would increase total spending by 1.1 percent, or $1.3 billion, and close $15.4 billion in deficits over two years.
The plan includes cutting school aid by 3.3 percent, or $698 million; increasing SUNY and CUNY tuition by 14 and 15 percent, respectively; increasing some motor vehicle and fishing fees; allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores; increasing the sales tax on luxuries; and creating new state and local sales taxes on music, movie and game downloads through services like iTunes.
Paterson's plan also calls for cutting 3,108 jobs from the state workforce of 196,000. Attrition would account for most of the reduction, but the proposal includes 521 layoffs in 2009-10, largely through consolidating state offices.
New York City would get whacked for more than a half-billion dollars in reduced school aid, municipal aid and school tax relief. And because the city's fiscal year is different from the state's, these cuts would hit current operations without time to prepare.
"There is no sharing of the sacrifice here," said Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association union, which represents state workers who will face a brief delay in pay to save the state money. "It's working people getting stuck with the bill."
Paterson used history to underscore his plan, even as it immediately was criticized by lawmakers and lobbyists for nickle-and-diming the middle class.
"In his inaugural address, President Franklin Roosevelt told a nation in the grips of the Great Depression that now is 'the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly,'" the Democratic governor said.
"He warned the American people must not shrink from 'honestly facing' the dark reality of the country," Paterson said. "Today, we, too, cannot shrink from the challenges ahead."
Paterson said that while annual spending growth in the last five years averaged 7.8 percent, the first budget he's proposing would increase state operating funds by just a half of 1 percent. That would put state funds - the figure that excludes federal aid - at $79.8 billion, which he said is the lowest figure in 14 years.
But the budget is far from final. The Legislature still must agree to the spending plan that's due April 1, though Paterson hopes to seal a budget deal earlier to more quickly enact spending cuts attacking the deficits. He has blamed the deficits on decades of overspending, often for special interests led by labor unions, and on the Wall Street meltdown hitting an industry that has provided 20 percent of state revenues in recent years.
"It's going to be a very difficult year," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Monday night after he was briefed privately on the budget. "But I'm confident the Assembly, Senate and governor will be able to work together."
Most sectors whose funding would be held flat from the current year say that amounts to a cut, one they can't afford.
"The governor has shifted the unbearable burden of closing the budget gap onto the shoulders of school children, while sparing the wealthiest New Yorkers," said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education. AQE supported a tax on New Yorkers making over $1 million, which Paterson has so far rejected.
School districts and the New York State Association of Counties have warned that reduced state funding, more unfunded mandates like a 2010 hike in the welfare grant that Paterson proposes, and even flat funding could force higher local property taxes.
"The spending reductions in this budget proposal are painful," said NYSAC President Sarah Purdy. "County leaders are engaged in this process and are willing to work through this crisis together with the governor and state Legislature to continue essential services in a way that does not increase the burden on New York's taxpayers."
Taxpayers will feel the pinch in several ways. Besides potential increases in local property taxes, Paterson wants to boost income tax revenue by closing what he considers to be loopholes and making other adjustments short of changing the rates. In addition, Paterson proposes eliminating the STAR rebate program - a state subsidy that he said has failed to achieve the promised goal of reducing local school taxes.
He would end the rebate checks sent to homeowners and the corresponding enhanced New York City personal income tax credit. That will save more than $1.7 billion. Paterson would continue at previous years' levels the STAR tax exemption - a savings off tax bills rather than through a rebate check often delivered at election time - and the New York City rebate.
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From http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/doc49484176818ec606532126.txt ...
State budget highlights
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:04 PM EST
HERE ARE some of the key proposals in Gov. David Paterson's state budget for 2009-10:
* Reduce state aid to public schools by 3.3 percent.
* Increase State University of New York tuition by $620 a year, or about 14 percent, and City University of New York tuition by $600, about 15 percent.
* Create a $350 million program to provide lower-interest loans to as many as 45,000 college students.
* Increase driver's license and registration fees by 25 percent and require new license plates at a cost of $25.
* Lift the limit on how much state tax can be charged for gasoline. The state's tax currently is limited to 8 cents per gallon.
* Authorize video slot machines for the Belmont Park race track, which Paterson says would generate a franchise payment of at least $370 million in 2010-11.
* Have the state adopt New York City's policy of charging sales tax on personal services such as hair cuts, massages and credit rating services.
* Reinstate the state's sales tax on clothing and footwear purchases under $110, while allowing two tax-free periods per year.
* Put a sales tax on cable and satellite TV and radio.
* Impose no increase in broad-based income tax rates, but have New Yorkers pay more in income taxes through the closing of what Paterson considers loopholes.
* Impose a sales tax on items that can be downloaded, like movies, music and games.
* Increase the welfare grant in 2010 while making government-subsidized insurance available to more of the working poor, in part by ending some anti-fraud measures.
* Make it easier for the poor and working poor to get government health coverage by eliminating some anti-fraud measures.
* Allow 19- and 20-year-olds who do not live with their parents to enroll in Family Health Plus, the state health plan, under the same rules as if they lived at home.
* Offer more outreach to help returning military veterans and their families get the government services to which they are entitled.
* Increase assessments and reduce funding for hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. The result could be higher health insurance costs for consumers and employers.
* Create an "obesity tax" of about 18 percent on sugary drinks from non-diet sodas to Gatorade to raise $404 million.
* Create a $1 million obesity prevention program.
* Take unspent funding for graduate medical education and redirect it to the state's pool to cover the care of indigents at teaching hospitals.
* Increase funds for indigent care in clinics and funding to food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.
* Increase funding for programs to prevent lead poisoning in children, mostly in poor city neighborhoods. The cost would be $2.5 million in 2009-10 and $5 million in 2010-11.
* Crack down on failings of the state's Empire Zone program, which provides tax breaks to companies in exchange for creating or retaining jobs. Paterson wants to cut the program in half by requiring companies already getting big, multiyear tax breaks to prove they have created jobs they promised. These actions would be expected to save $272 million in 2009-10 and $292 million in 2010-11.
* Give pay raises to 1,200 state judges, whose haven't had on in 10 years.
* Leave 213 state parks and historic sites open but reduce services and add fees for camping, cabin rentals, golf and marina use.
* Require deposits on bottles of water and other non-carbonated beverages, with unclaimed refunds supporting the Environmental Protection Fund for buying open space.
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Paterson's budget keeps $8 million in for Walkway; adds about $4 billion in new taxes, fees
BY JOSEPH SPECTOR * JOURNAL ALBANY BUREAU * DECEMBER 16, 2008
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081216/NEWS12/81216007&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
ALBANY - In his 2009-10 budget proposal today, Gov. David Paterson is calling for $8 million for the Walkway over the Hudson bridge.
Half of the money would come from the Environmental Protection Fund and the other half from bonded capital funds. The $8 million is in line with the amount of state aid that Walkway expected next year, which means this budget would not hinder efforts to complete the project.
But the budget also called for massive cuts to state education and health-care aid, an elimination of a property-tax rebate program for homeowners and 88 new taxes and fees.
The moves have been expected for months as Paterson tries to close an unprecedented $15.4 billion deficit over the next two years. And few programs are being spared.
The proposed $121 billion budget proposal, released in a presentation this morning, calls for keeping spending growth flat from the current fiscal year, which expires March 31.
But to keep up with increases in costs and a decline in revenue, particularly from the struggles on Wall Street, Paterson wants to trim school aid, limit the growth in Medicaid spending and reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes, and lower pension benefits for new state and local government employees. He also wants to reduce the state workforce by 3,100 jobs -- including 521 layoffs.
School aid would be cut by an average of 3.3 percent, or nearly $700 million from the current fiscal year, to a total of nearly $21 billion -- stoking fears from education officials that local property taxes would need to be increased to make up the difference. Cuts in aid would range from 3 percent to 13 percent based on a district's wealth, budget officials said.
Seven local school districts could receive double digit decreases in state aid under the governor's proposal. At the top of the list is Rhinebeck with a $373,000 decrease, or -14.46. Wappingers schools could receive $6.1 million less next year, or -12.30.
The growth in aid to hospitals and nursing homes would be reduced as part of a $3.5 billion plan to lower health-care costs. Even with the funding reductions, New York would still rank first in the nation in per capita Medicaid spending at $2,283, aides said.
Paterson warns that the fiscal problems are the result of years of overspending.
"We have lived beyond our means," he said during his budget address to members of the Legislature and elected leaders from across the state. "We have made too many promises and made not enough sacrifices."
Paterson is presenting the budget to the state Legislature a month earlier than usual in hopes of getting an early agreement to cut spending. The Legislature is required to pass a spending plan by April 1, but Paterson wants it passed by March 1, saying it would save the state about $1.3 billion.
He challenged lawmakers that if they don't like his proposals, they should recommend their own ideas. His budget presentation was met with just light applause.
Some lawmakers warned that the budget cuts could lead to higher local property taxes because costs for schools and programs would get passed down to the local level.
"To our residents, it doesn't matter which pocket it's coming out of," said Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, Rockland County.
Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, said the budget woes "is one we have never seen, and obviously it's going to require dramatic changes."
The Democratic governor avoids calling for a broad-based income tax increase, but the budget includes 88 new or increased fees and 10 new public safety fines. In total, the budget calls for about $4 billion in new taxes and fees to offset losses of revenue from Wall Street.
Some of the new charges include an 18 percent sales tax on soft drinks, called an "obesity tax," eliminating the sales-tax exemption on clothing and footwear under $110 and imposing a sales tax on cable and satellite radio.
Critics warn that the increases in fees will only further hurt the state's economy.
"Raising and imposing new taxes penalizes New York's middle class families, drives employers away and will ultimately worsen, prolong and deepen this economic recession," said Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady.
To save $1.4 billion, Paterson would also eliminate a STAR rebate tax program started in 2006 in which homeowners receive a check each fall to help offset the state's high property taxes. Paterson would still keep the larger STAR rebate program intact; that program provides tax relief off of homeowner's property tax bills.
The budget also calls for a $620 a year increase in tuition for state colleges and universities, but Paterson wants to create a higher education loan program to help students afford school.
Aid to municipalities would remain flat, yet eliminates a proposed increase in aid of about $61 million. Paterson also wants to cut back on spending for the much maligned Empire Zone economic development program, which provides tax breaks to companies, saving the state $272 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy said the cut in growth in aid was expected, but he's hoping the budget plan will give cities less unfunded mandates.
"We're looking for more local control and more ways to control our spending," he said.
Six youth detention facilities would be closed, including the Rochester Community Residential Home.
The pension changes for state and local workers would increase the minimum retirement age from 62 to 55, require employees to contribute to the pension fund after their 10th year of service and no longer allow overtime to be included in calculating retirement benefits.
Unions already vowed to fight any cuts in state services and jobs. Unions have called on Paterson to raise income taxes on the wealthy, which Paterson has not ruled out but said wouldn't solve the fiscal crisis.
"The middle class will have to pay more and get less while the wealthiest New Yorkers slide by under the Governor's proposal," said CSEA President Danny Donohue. "There is no sharing of the sacrifice here - it's working people getting stuck with the bill."
For a while now you've heard about that Quinnipiac poll from Aug. 6th showing that a whopping 78% of New Yorkers "support a millionaire's tax to avoid local tax hikes and service cuts"...
[see much more re: Quinnipiac poll at http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1198 ]
Well-- it ain't just Quinnipiac in August, folks-- see below (reported last week on WAMC)-- the Siena poll that just came out confirms the same number-- a whopping 78% of us across NY stand strongly in support of a millionaire's tax!...
So-- call Gov. Paterson and state legislators now at (877) 255-9417-- to support the Better Choice Budget...
[join 39 others @ http://www.PetitionOnline.com/BCBudget ; see statement from 100 economists below]
[...and let us know at 489-5479 if you'd like to be part of a "I'm Part of the 78%" rally locally 'round the corner!...]
Check out http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org for massive Better Choice Budget coalition in support if you haven't yet-- Dutchess Outreach, New York State AFL-CIO, New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, New York Statewide Senior Action Council, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Environmental Advocates of New York State, Citizens Environmental Coalition, The Interfaith Alliance of NYS, AFSCME New York, Citizen Action of New York State, Civil Service Employees Association, Hunger Action Network of NYS, MicroBizNewYork, New York Jobs with Justice, New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, New York State Community Action Association, New York State Episcopal Public Policy Network, New York State Labor Religion Coalition, New York State United Teachers, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Nutrition Consortium of NYS, PEF, Public Utility Law Project, Capital Area Council of Churches, Albany Presbytery, Faith and Hunger Network of NYS, FOCUS Churches of Albany, Greater New York Labor Religion Coalition, Greater NY Labor-Religion Coalition, Labor-Religion Coalition of Chemung County, Labor-Religion Coalition of the Capital District, Leviticus 25:23 Alternative Fund, Inc., Lutheran Statewide Advocacy, Regional Synod of Albany, Reformed Church in America, Office of Justice and Peace, Southern Tier Labor Religion Coalition, many more...
Four important facts from the Better Choice Budget coalition-- "The poorest New Yorkers pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes than do millionaires (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). Top income tax rates for the wealthiest have been reduced from 15.375% to 6.85% over the last 25 years (Division of Budget). Since 2003, people making over $200,000 per year have seen their income grow by 108% while those under $200,000 have seen their income grow by only 15% (Division of Budget). Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says it is better for state's economy to increase taxes on the wealthy rather than to cut spending on goods and services purchased locally."
The fact that the way our tax system is now, middle income New Yorkers now pay literally about twice the state and local taxes that the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay as a percentage of income because of unfair tax shifts to the local level over the last few decades-- it's high time we worked to restore at least just a bit of progressivity and fairness into our tax code, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, as Assemblyman Kevin Cahill himself has repeatedly pointed out in his speeches at Dutchess County Democratic Committee Issues Forums over the last few years...
[see http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm ; http://www.itepnet.org/pb41pit.pdf ;
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/state-tax-issues/new-york/ ]
The richest 1% of New Yorkers are also now paying about half the income taxes to Albany as they did three decades ago under Rockefeller (when our local property taxes weren't nearly so high-- real shift to local level hadn't begun yet). Read "A Little Bit of Tax History-- The Path Not Taken: How New York State Increased the Tax Burden on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for its Highest Income Taxpayers by Over $8 Billion a Year" by Frank Mauro-- at http://www.Fiscalpolicy.org/taxhistory2.htm .
From http://www.cbs6albany.com/common/printer/view.php?db=wrgb&id=1259495 ...
[again-- why does Pok. Journal front page again ignore overwhelming support for millionaire's tax?!?]
"New Siena poll: NYers Strongly Favor Millionaire's Tax"
[CBS 6 News December 17, 2008 - 10:58AM]
A new Siena poll released Wednesday shows New Yorkers...strongly support a millionaire's tax. The poll was taken over the phone Dec. 8th through Dec. 11th, before the Governor released his budget yesterday. New York voters overwhelmingly support the so-called millionaire's tax, with 78 percent supporting a personal income tax increaase on those making more than $1 million, and 61 percent supporting a tax increase on those making more than $250,000. If broad-based taxes are not increased, voters strongly oppose cuts in education and health care.
Statements Concerning New State Budget:
1. Raise income taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $1,000,000
78% support
(65% strongly support)
17% oppose
(12% strongly oppose)
2. Raise income taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $250,000
61% support
(41% strongly support)
31% oppose
(23% strongly oppose)
3. Cut spending for education while not increasing broad-based taxes such as income tax or sales tax
22% support
(12% strongly support)
68% oppose
(54% strongly oppose)
4. Cut spending for health care while not increasing broad-based taxes such as income or sales tax
21% support
(10% strongly support)
65% oppose
(51% strongly oppose)
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
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Recall early Chanukah/Christmas present from Gov. Paterson-- he finally relented a bit on this in this past Sunday's Times:
"Many groups are already broadcasting commercials urging the governor to broadly tax the rich in order to avert some of his steep proposed education and health care cuts. And Mr. Paterson seems to be edging closer to acknowledging that he may have no choice but to do so. 'Taxing the wealthy is probably going to be part of the solution if the deficit gets any worse, and all indications are that it probably will. If the deficit starts to grow again, then we’re out of moves. I’ve cut as much as I could.'"
[see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/nyregion/21millionaire.html?hp ]
Scroll down just a bit to see letter to Gov. Paterson from literally 100 economists from across NY (including many from here in Dutchess at Vassar and Bard)-- making it clear that "steep state budget cuts will exacerbate the economic downturn and harm vulnerable low- and moderate-income New Yorkers; constrained by a balanced budget imperative, states face only difficult choices in balancing their budgets during recessions; economic theory and historical experience gives a clear and unambiguous answer: it is economically preferable to raise taxes on those with high incomes than to cut state expenditures"
[Here in our area the following economists have signed on to endorse this strong statement-- Alexander M. Thompson III of Vassar College, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Greg Hannsgen, Thomas Masterson, Ajit Zacharias, and Feridoon Koohi-Kamali of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Gautam Sethi of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy-- scroll down a bit below for more on this; and click on: http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_Release_EconomistsOnFiscalPolicy_December2008.pdf ]
[also see-- "Recession Prevention: Keynes Was Right" [from Brookings Institution:
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0128_recession_prevention_furman.aspx ]
So-- again-- call Gov. Paterson and state legislators at (877) 255-9417-- to support the Better Choice Budget!...
[and email countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us to get resolution passed in our County Legislature too]
Recall--just five years ago State Senate Majority G.O.P. like Steve Saland worked with guys like Joe Bruno and Shelly Silver to implement an income tax surcharge on the wealthy when the state was facing a similar whopping deficit...(and even Pok. Journal editorials before the election pointed out repeatedly that local Republican state legislators running for re-election supposedly would seriously consider exactly this!)...
Ball's in your court, folks (action steps above to contact county legislators and state legislators on this)...
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From the Fiscal Policy Institute...
[see http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_Release_StatementOnExecutiveBudget.pdf ]
NEWS from the Fiscal Policy Institute
For immediate release: December 16, 2008
Contact: Frank Mauro, FPI Executive Director
518-786-3156 (office), 518-469-6680 (mobile)
James Parrott, FPI Deputy Director and Chief Economist
212-721-5624 (office), 917-880-9931 (mobile)
Jo Brill, FPI Director of Communications
914-671-9442 (mobile)
FPI Reaction to the Proposed Executive Budget
The state’s plan should use all available resources—certainly including funds set
aside precisely to meet unplanned end-of-year deficits. In proposing actions to close
this year’s $1.7 billion deficit, the governor unaccountably ignores balances available in
the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund. This reserve fund is specifically designated for
unplanned end-of-year deficits. It cannot be used to cover already anticipated deficits.
The Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund should be an important component of the plan to
close this year’s deficit.
The governor’s proposal hurts low- and moderate-income New Yorkers while
requiring little from wealthy New Yorkers. Cuts in state programs disproportionately
affect New York’s working and poor families, who have not prospered in recent years
and who will suffer greatly in this recession. “Shared sacrifice” should mean that all New
Yorkers contribute to help solve this problem. The budget should not be balanced on the
backs of low- and moderate-income people.
The governor’s proposal would cause needless harm to the state economy. It relies
heavily on cuts to essential programs and services. Taking away a dollar in government
spending on transfer payments or vital community services has a far more contractionary
impact on the economy than does taking a dollar from a high-income family. During a
recession, the least damaging kind of budget balancing action is an increase in the tax on
the portion of family income over a relatively high level.
Dozens of economists from all over New York State have written to the governor to say,
Steep state budget cuts will exacerbate the economic downturn and harm
vulnerable low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Constrained by a balanced
budget imperative, states face only difficult choices in balancing their budgets
during recessions. Economic theory and historical experience gives a clear and
unambiguous answer: it is economically preferable to raise taxes on those with
high incomes than to cut state expenditures.
Full text of the letter is available at
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPI_Release_EconomistsOnFiscalPolicy_December2008.pdf .
The governor’s proposed budget also relies on increases in consumption taxes and fees.
While such revenue increases may do less damage to the economy than some expenditure
reductions, they are clearly more harmful than a progressive increase in the income tax.
The lessons from 2003 show that New York can successfully close large budget
gaps—without disproportionately hurting low and middle-income families, or causing
undue harm to the economy. The last time New York dealt with budget gaps of this
magnitude was after 9/11. At that time, in addition to spending cuts, the legislature placed
a temporary income tax surcharge on high-income filers. Employment in the state grew
each year that the surcharge was in place, and the number of high-income returns grew
steadily from about 245,000 in 2002 to an estimated 420,000 in 2007.
Moreover, a recent Princeton study concluded that no net out-migration of the rich
resulted from New Jersey raising income taxes on households with incomes over
$500,000. The governor’s concern that the wealthy will choose to leave New York is
overblown.
[letter here below from 100 economists from all over NYS-- including Vassar and Bard here in Dutchess County]
Dear Governor Paterson:
New York State faces enormous challenges in closing a projected $12.5 billion gap in the 2009-2010 state budget. Wall Street is the epicenter of the global financial crisis and there likely will be no quick rebound from what could prove to be a severe recession.
We applaud the leadership you have shown in tackling the state's budget crisis head on. We agree with you that the federal government has an obligation to New York and all the states in providing substantial fiscal relief to help state governments maintain essential public services during this crisis.
We are concerned, however, that steep state budget cuts will exacerbate the economic downturn and harm vulnerable low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Constrained by a balanced budget imperative, states face only difficult choices in balancing their budgets during recessions. Economic theory and historical experience gives a clear and unambiguous answer: it is economically preferable to raise taxes on those with high incomes than to cut state expenditures.
The reasoning is straightforward: in a recession, you want to raise (or not decrease) the level of total spending-by households, businesses and government-in the economy. That keeps people employed and buying things, and makes it more likely that businesses will want to invest to serve that consumer demand. Budget cuts reduce the level of total spending. Raising taxes on high income households also will reduce spending, but by much less than the amount of the tax increase since those with plenty of income typically spend only a fraction of their income.
By contrast, almost every dollar of state and local government spending on transfer payments to the needy and for the salaries of public servants providing vital services to our communities enters the local economy right away, generating a greater economic impact. The New York local spending impact difference is even greater when you consider that much of the higher state income tax will be deductible against federal income taxes, and that non-residents who commute to high-paying jobs in New York will pay much of the increase.
Raising taxes and maintaining public expenditures and investments also helps New York and America in meeting its long run needs. America today faces two major problems-inadequate investments, especially in infrastructure, and growing inequality. The poor are particularly dependent on government expenditures, and cutbacks would hurt them the most.
Our nation is at an historic juncture. In both Washington and Albany, we need to move away from polarization and toward economic and fiscal policies that restore a better balance between the private and public sectors.
Signed,
Radhika Balakrishnan Marymount Manhattan College Erol Balkan Hamilton College Christopher Barrett Cornell University William J. Baumol New York University Nathaniel Beck New York University Peter Bell Purchase College, SUNY Lourdes Beneria Cornell University Howard Botwinick SUNY Cortland Murray Brown SUNY Buffalo (Emeritus) Martha Campbell SUNY Potsdam Howard Chernick Hunter College, CUNY Robert Cherry Brooklyn College, CUNY Kenny Christianson Binghamton University Susan Christopherson Cornell University Drew A. Claxton NERA Economic Consulting Mary E. Cleveland Columbia University Joseph DaBoll-Lavoie Nazareth College of Rochester Susan M. Davis Buffalo State College Gregory DeFreitas Hofstra University Ranjit S. Dighe SUNY Oswego Matthew P. Drennan New York University (Visiting) Ronald G. Ehrenberg Cornell University Marianne Fahs Hunter College, CUNY Gary Fields Cornell University Frederick G. Floss Buffalo State College Marc Fox Brooklyn College, CUNY Robert H. Frank Cornell University Janet L. Frankl SUNY Oneonta Chris Georges Hamilton College Teresa Ghilarducci The New School Ulla Grapard Colgate University Wayne A. Grove LeMoyne College and Syracuse University Alan Haight SUNY Cortland Greg Hannsgen Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Doug Henwood Left Business Observer Barry Herman The New School (Visiting) Conrad M. Herold Hofstra University Joan Hoffman John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY Naphtali Hoffman Elmira College David L. Howell The New School Michael Hudson Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends Dene T. Hurley Lehman College, CUNY Joseph Jamison New York State AFL-CIO Elizabeth J. Jensen Hamilton College Tae-Hee Jo Buffalo State College Alfred E. Kahn NERA Economic Consulting John Kane SUNY Oswego Victor Kasper Buffalo State College Christa K. Kelson SUNY Canton Feisal Khan Hobart & William Smith College J. Douglass Klein Union College Feridoon Koohi-Kamali Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Douglas Koritz Buffalo State College Brent Kramer CUNY Laurence Kranich University at Albany, SUNY Rachel Kreier Hofstra University Henry M. Levin Columbia University John C. LeVine LeVine Capital Group Mark Levinson UNITE-HERE Winston T. Lin SUNY Buffalo Jeff Madrick The New School and Challenge Magazine Jay Mandle Colgate University Stanley Masters Binghamton University Thomas Masterson Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Michele Mattingly Fiscal Policy Institute Roberto Mazzoleni Hofstra University S. Diane McFarland Buffalo State College Rex McKenzie Purchase College, SUNY Martin Melkonian Hofstra University Jo Beth Mertens Hobart & William Smith College Thomas Michl Colgate University George Monokroussos University at Albany, SUNY Joseph C. Morreale Pace University Thomas Muench SUNY Stony Brook Michael Musuraca District Council 37, AFSCME Matthew G. Nagler City College, CUNY Matthew Neidell Columbia University Michael Nuwer SUNY Potsdam Dimitri B. Papadimitriou Levy Economics Institute of Bard College James Parrott Fiscal Policy Institute M. Stephen Pendleton Buffalo State College Paddy Quick St. Francis College, Brooklyn Lawrence E. Raffalovich University at Albany, SUNY Michael H. Riordan Columbia University Carl Riskin Queens College, CUNY Leonard Rodberg Queens College, CUNY Roy Rotheim Skidmore College Elliott Sclar Columbia University Naveen Seth Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology Gautam Sethi Bard Center for Environmental Policy Amarendra Sharma Elmira College Richard L. Shirey Siena College Shao-Chee Sim Ph.D. Curtis Skinner Pelliparius Consulting Brad Smith AFSCME, Local 375 Robert Smith Cornell University Paul Smoke New York University Alexander M. Thompson III Vassar College Erik Thorbecke Cornell University (Emeritus) Renee Toback Ph.D. John F. Tomer Manhattan College Christina L. Trees SUNY Cobleskill W. Scott Trees Siena College Dimitrios Tsaprounis THEORI Robert W. Turner Colgate University A. Dale Tussing Syracuse University Leanne Ussher Queens College, CUNY David Weiman Barnard College Lawrence J. White New York University Susan Wieler Citizens' Committee for Children of New York Edward Wolff New York University Max Fraad Wolff The New School Andrew Wyler-David Purchase College, SUNY June Zaccone Hofstra University (Emerita) Ajit Zacharias Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Paul Zarembka SUNY Buffalo Michael Zweig SUNY Stony Brook
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From: mkd67@aol.com
[Ron Deutsch New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness 212 Great Oaks Blvd Albany, NY 12203
518-452-2130 518-869-8649 (fax) 518-469-6769 (cell)
Subject: re: NYFF statement on budget
For immediate release: Contact:
December 16, 2008 Ron Deutsch (518) 469-6769
Governor Paterson Talks of "Shared Sacrifice" but
his Budget Suggests "Spared Sacrifice"
New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness is disappointed that the Governor decided to allow working class New Yorkers to shoulder the burden of this budget deficit. While the Governor calls for "shared sacrifice," his budget seems to allow for mostly "spared sacrifice." Increasing fees and enormous cuts in state spending on education, healthcare, and state services could be mitigated if the Governor had simply chosen to listen to the people of New York State who have been calling for an income tax increase on the wealthiest 5% of New Yorkers. Poll after poll shows that New Yorkers support an increase in the top tax rates of the wealthiest state residents.
Yesterday, over 100 Economists from around the state urged the Governor to adopt a balanced approach to closing the state deficit. They suggest that an income tax increase on the wealthiest would be less harmful to the state's economy then massive cuts to state spending. They posit that we need to keep as much money in the local economy as possible in order to effectively get out of this recession and close the budget gap.
A comprehensive solution means that all New Yorkers need to help solve this problem and that the wealthiest among us have an even greater obligation to contribute. We fear that the Governor's budget will continue to shift more costs to the county level and leave it up to the property tax payers in NYS to make up the difference. The governor says that he fears that wealthy New Yorkers will leave the state if we increase income taxes on the rich. We believe what will drive people out of NYS are bad schools, deteriorating hospitals, and dirty streets. This budget will cause a deterioration in the quality of life for many working families in NYS that could be avoided by asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share of taxes.
################################################
[recall below sent out on this Dec. 18th]
Re: state budget-- don't drink neoliberal Kool-Aid; fact: 78% of us for millionaire's tax!...
Despite Paterson's quoting FDR recently, fact is that FDR did not get us out of depression w/layoffs...
"The middle class will have to pay more and get less while the wealthiest New Yorkers slide by under the Governor's proposal," said CSEA President Danny Donohue. "There is no sharing of the sacrifice here - it's working people getting stuck with the bill." [from today's Poughkeepsie Journal re: budget]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081216/NEWS12/81216007&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
The richest 1% of Dutchess County residents are now getting more than $90,000 a year in federal tax breaks compared to what they paid four years ago, according to Citizens for Tax Justice-- http://www.CTJ.org -- while the rest of us are getting killed with excessive property taxes that are roughly 70% higher than the national average, according to the Citizens Budget Commission...
############################################
[recall below sent out to e-list Dec. 20th]
Re: income tax/property tax mix: see today's "Valley Views" < Habitat for Humanity President...
Hi all...
Check out the great op-ed piece below from today's Poughkeepsie Journal!...
Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County President Rich Taylor hits the nail squarely on the head-- calling for shifting burden of funding crucial government services towards income taxes-- in order to slash property taxes...(as I've been calling for for many years-- well over 150 folks across county signed on to http://www.Petitiononline.com/Fairness ; 35 also on board http://www.petitiononline.com/stopcuts ;
http://www.petitiononline.com/fairtax ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FAIRTAX )...
[of course this is same message as at http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org , http://www.FiscalPolicy.org ]
I've reached out to Taylor in hopes of collaborating w/him to put together countywide forum on this issue asap in Poughkeepsie (perhaps in Co. Leg. chambers Jan./Feb.): let us know if you want to help!...
From http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008812200306 , then...
Valley Views: Tax Income, Not Property
BY RICH TAYLOR * DECEMBER 20, 2008
[Rich Taylor is President of Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County.]
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."
- John F. Kennedy
Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County has been trying unsuccessfully to qualify a family for a house to be built on Garden Street or Thompson Street in the City of Poughkeepsie for the past four years.
We can qualify families for a house, which may have a mortgage payment of less than $300 per month, but when we add in the escrow of school tax, property tax and homeowners insurance, plus utilities, they fail to qualify.
Mind you, we are working with families in the $35,000 to $40,000 range. If we move to a higher range, they most likely will not be living in substandard housing.
It is becoming harder and harder to help families who truly need to help due to the unfair and antiquated taxing system in New York state. In the past three years, two of our families have failed and their houses were put up for foreclosure.
Our mission is to eliminate substandard housing, but with our present system, our hands are tied.
We need to base school and property taxes on income, not on homeownership. With such a system, taxes would be spread among all who bring home a paycheck. New York state has the lowest owner-occupied households in the country, but has the highest school and property taxes.
We need to change this system now, so every family seeking the American dream can realize it with a simple, decent and safe home to raise their children to be upstanding citizens.
"If you don't like change," U.S. Gen. Eric Shinseki said, "you're going to like irrelevance even less."
A few of the advantages of a income-based tax system I feel would be: general taxes would decrease, more students would complete high school and go on to college, drugs and street crime would decrease, all health costs would go down, there would be fewer foreclosures and the elderly would not be taxed out of their homes.
There are many more benefits than I have room for in this column. One most important item is that Habitat could take a leading part in eliminating poverty housing in Dutchess County, and I believe it can be done.
If you agree with changing the present system of taxation, please contact me at Shelter3 @aol.com. I would like to hear your thoughts. With a strong group, we can change the tax structure in New York state for the benefit of all.
As Margaret Mead said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
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As I stated at last Tuesday night's Co. Leg. meeting, I've been watching the county budget process now for over a decade here in Dutchess County, and every single year it comes down to keeping the property tax too high, keeping our sales tax too high, underfunding crucial county services, or laying people off-- it doesn't have to be this way, folks...(see http://www.totalwebcasting.com/live/dutchess/ )...
[example-- waiting list still exists for cost-saving senior home care-- $24,000 cut still needs to be remedied; see: "No Need for Nursing Home if PACE Handles Senior Care" (USA Today 11/17/08)--
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-16-PACE_N.htm countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us!]
It really might be worth the while of our County Legislature to at least allow a referendum sooner or later on a local income tax to slash property taxes-- while making sure that crucial services are funded!...
[kudos to former Co. Leg. (and Co. Exec candidate) Fred Bunnell for having moxie enough to be for this]
Recall-- Yonkers and New York City have local-level income taxes, with revenue collected by Albany through state income tax forms that is then given back to those localities-- it wouldn't be hard to add our county to that list...and Newsday, many Nassau County business leaders, the Chair of the Tompkins County Legislature, and many in Monroe County have endorsed similar plans there; Rockland and Tompkins County Legislatures started study commissions to look at similar revenue alternatives...
Recall-- the way our tax system is now, middle income New Yorkers now pay literally about twice the state and local taxes that the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay as a percentage of income because of unfair tax shifts to the local level over the last few decades-- it's high time we worked to restore at least just a bit of progressivity and fairness into our tax code, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, as Assemblyman Kevin Cahill himself has repeatedly pointed out in his speeches at Dutchess County Democratic Committee Issues Forums over the last few years...
[see http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm ; http://www.itepnet.org/pb41pit.pdf ;
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/state-tax-issues/new-york/ ]
Not to be overlooked-- 5 important facts from http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org/topten_mil.html :
[massive Better Choice Budget Coalition website-- faith groups, nonprofits, unions]
"The poorest New Yorkers pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes than do millionaires (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). Top income tax rates for the wealthiest have been reduced from 15.375% to 6.85% over the last 25 years (Division of Budget). Since 2003, people making over $200,000 per year have seen their income grow by 108% while those under $200,000 have seen their income grow by only 15% (Division of Budget). Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says it is better for state's economy to increase taxes on the wealthy rather than to cut spending on goods and services purchased locally. Quinnipiac poll August 6th: 78% of New Yorkers support a millionaire's tax to avoid local tax hikes and service cuts."
[see http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1198 ]
[Even G.O.P. state legislators Joel Miller, Marc Molinaro, John Bonacic all have this in common-- they have all advocated for raising income taxes (rather drastically) as way to cut property taxes...re: Miller on this see: http://assembly.state.ny.us/member_files/102/20060628/ ; re: Molinaro, see:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081021/NEWS01/810210323 ; re: Bonacic's local plan-- http://blog.syracuse.com/cayugacounty/2007/02/residents_seek_tax_relief.html .]
[Again-- Assemblymember Kevin Cahill has put forth the best bill-- the Equity in Education Act; see:
http://kevincahillny.com/news_detail.php?news_id=6 ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FAIRTAX .]
The point here is this-- that the income tax hikes proposed by Republicans Miller, Molinaro, and Bonacic (and Cahill) pale in comparison to local income tax hike possible to cut county property taxes...
Frank Mauro, Exec Dir. for the Fiscal Policy Institute, has done the following computations for Dutchess: http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/dutchessRPTlevies.htm ; http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/dutchess1999and2000.htm ; http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/dutchess2001.htm ;
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/ImpactatDifferentIncomeLevels.htm ...
"The calculations of the reduction in the county property tax levy that could be accomplished with a 10% surcharge on the income tax (that's a surcharge on a taxpayer's state income tax bill, not a surcharge on the taxpayer's income) assume a reduction in all property taxes (including business's property taxes)."
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From "Plenty of Pain To Go Around in State Budget" (Dec. 17th Daily Freeman AP story on this)...
[see http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/17/news/doc4948840c21870766305773.txt ]
The plan includes cutting school aid by 3.3 percent, or $698 million; increasing SUNY and CUNY tuition by 14 and 15 percent, respectively;
Paterson's plan also calls for cutting 3,108 jobs from the state workforce of 196,000. Attrition would account for most of the reduction, but the proposal includes 521 layoffs in 2009-10, largely through consolidating state offices.
Paterson: "In his inaugural address, President Franklin Roosevelt told a nation in the grips of the Great Depression that now is 'the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly,'" the Democratic governor said. "He warned the American people must not shrink from 'honestly facing' the dark reality of the country," Paterson said. "Today, we, too, cannot shrink from the challenges ahead."
"The governor has shifted the unbearable burden of closing the budget gap onto the shoulders of school children, while sparing the wealthiest New Yorkers," said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education. AQE supported a tax on New Yorkers making over $1 million, which Paterson has so far rejected.
School districts and the New York State Association of Counties have warned that reduced state funding, more unfunded mandates like a 2010 hike in the welfare grant that Paterson proposes, and even flat funding could force higher local property taxes.
"The spending reductions in this budget proposal are painful," said NYSAC President Sarah Purdy. "County leaders are engaged in this process and are willing to work through this crisis together with the governor and state Legislature to continue essential services in a way that does not increase the burden on New York's taxpayers."
[also see http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/December08/16/Gov_Budget-16Dec08.htm ]
Note one silver lining to Paterson budget (to his credit, this is part of Better Choice Budget):
"Crack down on failings of the state's Empire Zone program, which provides tax breaks to companies in exchange for creating or retaining jobs. Paterson wants to cut the program in half by requiring companies already getting big, multiyear tax breaks to prove they have created jobs they promised. These actions would be expected to save $272 million in 2009-10 and $292 million in 2010-11."
[from http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/doc49484176818ec606532126.txt ]
I've spent the last fifteen years as a community activist here in Dutchess trying to get out the truth about taxes and our state budget-- see http://www.FiscalPolicy.org , http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org -- yet again, this year as with the past fifteen years the local media by and large ignore fundamental truths...
[...so pass this email along to all you know!...(and call state legislators today at (877) 255-9417!)...]
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
################################################
[recall below sent out to this list Nov. 25th]
Help Pete Wassell, Tom Mansfield, Bill McCabe, Steve White stand up for tax fairness!...
Tired of watching crucial services face cutbacks year after year here in Dutchess County and across the state-- while our local property taxes seem to skyrocket higher and higher through the roof?...(I am)...
[recall http://www.petitiononline.com/stopcuts for reminder on atrocious choices facing us in Co. Leg.;
re: proposed state budget cuts we're out of frying pan, not out of fire, folks-- send message on this now]
There's a better way-- help get our County Legislature to pass resolution for the Better Choice Budget!...
[thanx to Pete Wassell, Tom Mansfield, Bill McCabe, Steve White-- co-sponsoring my resolution below]
Letters needed now on this to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us;
Thanks to all sixteen folks who came out to our press conference last week for Better Choice Budget:
Dutchess Outreach Executive Director Brian Riddell: "We've seen a twenty percent increase in folks looking for assistance from our food pantry over the last six months; state funding for our food programs as it is right now already have been cut by six percent this year on top of a five-percent cut in state funding last year. Dutchess County DSS Commissioner Bob Allers shared with many of us in different agencies last week that further state budget cuts proposed would devastate local child care programs for those trying to move off welfare into work"...
[Jen Fuentes/Brittany Turner/Jessica Damrath/Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation: big no to cuts too!]
County Legislator Peter Wassell (D-Dover) spoke how truly common-sense the proposals of the Better Choice Budget Coalition are to address the state's budget woes-- a return to a more progressive tax system in New York, as even former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno worked with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to make happen during the last large, looming state budget deficit in 2003. Wassell also recognized how rational and reasonable it is for the Better Choice Budget Coalition to be pushing to save hundreds of millions of dollars for NYS taxpayers by bargaining down the cost of prescription drugs and closing unfair tax loopholes...
Jonathan Smith, Democratic candidate for Assembly for the 102nd A.D., spoke about how unfair and misguided proposals are to underfund our schools, libraries, and health care, and how our state's leaders need to put the burden for funding these necessary functions of government back a bit more on millionaires with the millionaire's tax...
Bob Selcov and Carol Richmond from Legal Services of the Hudson Valley spoke of huge and long-lasting impact proposed state budget cuts will have on victims of domestic violence they serve...
Long-time community activists Mae Parker-Harris, Judy Green, and Marta Knapp spoke about how ridiculously unfair, unnecessary, and destructive two billion dollars more in state budget cuts would be, as low-income folks for a while now have had to try to get with more and more cutbacks in services, forcing them to live on less and less; Joanna Klein of the Dutchess County Arts Council spoke as well...
Fact: FDR didn't get us out of Depression w/big budget cuts. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal ]
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics (recently appointed chairman of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors), explains in his March 2008 letter to Governor Paterson and Legislative leaders that an increase in the tax on the portions of families' incomes over some relatively high level is the least damaging
mechanism for balancing state budgets during recessions. In contrast, cuts in government spending on goods and services that are produced locally (like education and healthcare) and cuts in transfer payments to lower-income families are most damaging to the economy since they come closest to taking dollar for dollar out of the local economy.
So-- one last time; up to you all now-- zip off a note on this now to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us!
Joel
489-5479
876-2488
[again-- for much, much more on this, see: http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org ;
http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/3306788.php? ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS02/811130326&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130333 ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130334 ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130330 ;
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081113/NEWS01/811130331 ]
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[won't happen without you folks-- send letter to countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us to get on agenda!]
WHEREAS, we here in Dutchess County once again have been confronted this year with the untenable choice of witnessing massive cuts to our county budget, underfunding county services, layoffs, or raising property taxes; these problems will only get worse until state budget revenue problems are solved, and
WHEREAS, the Better Choice Budget Coalition is made up of over a hundred different nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups, and labor unions across New York, including Dutchess Outreach, New York State AFL-CIO, New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, New York Statewide Senior Action Council, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Environmental Advocates of New York State, Citizens Environmental Coalition, The Interfaith Alliance of NYS, AFSCME New York, Citizen Action of New York State, Civil Service Employees Association, Hunger Action Network of NYS, MicroBizNewYork, New York Jobs with Justice, New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, New York State Community Action Association, New York State Episcopal Public Policy Network, New York State Labor Religion Coalition, New York State United Teachers, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Nutrition Consortium of NYS, Public Employees Federation, Public Utility Law Project, and dozens of other organizations across the state, and
WHEREAS, the Better Choice Budget Coalition has long called for the following common-sense revenue recommendations to be put into place in order to avoid property taxes going up when the burden for funding necessary government programs is unfairly shifted even more to the local level:
-- First, restore progressivity and fairness to New York's personal income tax (place additional tax brackets on the highest-income New Yorkers, as was done in bipartisan fashion during the 2003 economic crisis (this simple solution could yield between $4.3 to $6 billion depending on income levels and rates), and collect taxes that are due-especially cigarette taxes on reservation purchases by non-Indians (yield estimates range from $400 million to $1.6 billion a year);
-- Second, close the bottle bill loophole so the state receives deposits from unreturned bottles rather than the industry keeping the money (this would yield approximately $200 million per year), and reform or eliminate economic development programs to level the playing field among businesses in New York improve the effectiveness and accountability of Industrial Development Agencies, apply Brownfield Clean Up Program reforms to "grandfathered" projects and save up to $500 million, and
-- Third, close corporate tax loopholes by improving the way limited liability corporations' annual fees are calculated (for which NYS Division of Budget calculated $75 million/year in savings in 2007) and close other corporate tax loopholes; lower prescription drug prices by using the state's tremendous purchasing power to see reduced prices from drug manufacturers for prescription drugs for Medicaid, state employees, and other state programs (this could yield $100 million or more per year), and reduce the use of costly consultants receiving sweetheart contracts, hired to do work that state workers can and should be doing (this will yield savings of $250-$500 million), and therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature requests that our state legislators work with Governor David Paterson to implement the seven common-sense recommendations of the Better Choice Budget Coalition, in order to avoid local tax hikes, cuts in school aid, health care, service cuts, breaking of contractual promises, pay cuts, a cut to the Environmental Protection Fund, and layoffs here in Dutchess County and across New York, and be it further
RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be sent to Governor David Paterson, State Senators Vincent Leibell and Stephen Saland, and Assemblymembers Greg Ball, Kevin Cahill, Tom Kirwan, Joel Miller, and Marcus Molinaro.
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More crucial oft-overlooked facts:
We have a rainy day fund ($1.039 billion) to use as a cushion against many of the proposed mid-year cuts.
It would be irresponsible to make these cuts before we know what a federal fiscal relief package from Washington means for NYS
Need to put this off and have these deliberations as part of the budget process which will be started early this year (December 16, 2008)
Need to preserve vital state services and programs as demand for these services is going up - need to protect New York's most vulnerable families
Made new commitments over the last few years without new revenues - state spending is not out of control!
During an economic downturn it is better for the economy to raise taxes on the wealthiest rather than cutting services for the poorest
[re: above-- recall-- from Pok. Journal Oct. 30th-- "Jobs Growth in Dutchess 'Lackluster'" by Craig Wolf:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081030/BUSINESS/81030012 ]
Seven more key points from massive http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org coalition:
* Restore progressivity and fairness to New York's personal income tax:
Place additional tax brackets on the highest-income New Yorkers, as was done during the
2003 economic crisis. This simple solution could yield between $4.3 to $6 billion,
depending on income levels and rates. (A chart below from the Fiscal Policy Institute
lays out some possible scenarios.)
* Collect taxes that are due-especially cigarette taxes on reservation purchases
by non-Indians. Yield estimates range from $400 million to $1.6 billion a year.
* Close the bottle bill loophole so the state receives deposits from unreturned
bottles rather than the industry keeping the money. This would yield
approximately $200 million per year.
* Reform or eliminate economic development programs to level the playing
field among businesses in NYS:
o Improve the effectiveness and accountability of Industrial Development Agencies
o Apply Brownfield Clean Up Program reforms to "grandfathered" projects
and save up to $500 million
o Phase out or eliminate the Empire Zones program. Savings begin at $50
million per year, rising to $500 million after 10 years.
* Close corporate tax loopholes: Improve the way limited liability corporations'
annual fees are calculated (for which DOB calculated $75 million/year in savings
in 2007) and close other corporate tax loopholes.
* Lower prescription drug prices: Use the state's tremendous purchasing power
to see reduced prices from drug manufacturers for prescription drugs for
Medicaid, state employees, and other state programs. This could yield $100
million or more per year.
* Reduce the use of costly consultants receiving sweetheart contracts-hired to
do work that state workers can and should be doing. This will yield savings of
$250-$500 million.
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From http://www.abetterchoiceforny.org/topten_mil.html ...(see http://www.FiscalPolicy.org for more)...
TOP TEN REASONS TO SUPPORT THE "MILLIONAIRES TAX"
1.The poorest New Yorkers pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes than do millionaires (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)
2. Top income tax rates for the wealthiest have been reduced from 15.375% to 6.85% over the last 25 years (Division of Budget)
3. Since 2003, people making over $200,000 per year have seen their income grow by 108% while those under $200,000 have seen their income grow by only 15% (Division of Budget)
4. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says it is better for state's economy to increase taxes on the wealthy rather than to cut spending on goods and services purchased locally.
5. The Tax cuts enacted over the last 20 years have reduced state revenues by $16 billion per year (Division of Budget)
6. Since you can deduct state taxes from your federal return the feds would pick up 1/3 of the cost (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy).
7. 78 percent of New York voters support it (Quinnipiac Poll - 8/06/08)
[see http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1318.xml?ReleaseID=1198 ]
8. Warren Buffet (the world's richest man) says he does not pay enough in taxes (Google)
9. Senator Bruno and Speaker Silver agreed in 2003 that increasing taxes (from 6.85% to 7.7%) on people with incomes over $500,000 was the best way to close the budget gap, and they and their members did so over Governor Pataki's veto
10. In 2005, there were 61,300 taxpayers with NYS-AGI incomes in excess of $1,000,000. Of those, 51% were full year NYS residents, and 49% were full year nonresidents (live in another state)
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Fact: The richest 1% of New Yorkers are also now paying about half the income taxes to Albany as they did three decades ago under Rockefeller (when our local property taxes weren't nearly so high-- real shift to local level hadn't begun yet). Read "A Little Bit of Tax History-- The Path Not Taken: How New York State Increased the Tax Burden on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for its Highest Income Taxpayers by Over $8 Billion a Year" by Frank Mauro-- at http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/taxhistory2.htm ...
The richest 1% of Dutchess County residents are now getting more than $90,000 a year in federal tax breaks compared to what they paid four years ago, according to Citizens for Tax Justice-- http://www.CTJ.org .
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More from New Yorker for Fiscal Fairness Exec. Dir. Ron Deutsch (mkd67@aol.com)...
Subject: Better Choice and One New York respond to Gov's cuts
Dear Friends:
Wanted to let you know that yesterday was a great day for our coalition partners in the Better Choice Budget Campaign and the One New York: Fighting for Fairness Coalition. We were able to pull off press conferences in Buffalo, Rochester, Binghamton, Utica, Albany, Poughkeepsie, Long Island and New York City today. It was difficult to coordinate all of these events but with the help of our dedicated members we were able to pull it off. My thanks to all of you that participated/planned these events across the state. Our partners were able to get great coverage across the state - all have reported that they each had some TV coverage and print coverage (some did radio as well). The statewide event in Albany was also a success. It helped that the Governor held his press conference on the same day as we planned ours. Made our message very relevant.
Thanks again for all of your support!
Please sign on to the Better Choice Budget Campaign; if you have not signed up yet this year please consider doing so now!...[see http://www.ABetterChoiceforNY.org ]
Is State spending really out of control?
What the Governor and Division of Budget fail to acknowledge is that the State has made some important (and expensive) new commitments in the last several years without any new revenue streams to pay for them:
* Family Health Plus Takeover and Medicaid Cap - $1 billion this year; $1.35 next year and $2.5 billion in 2010-11
* STAR - From $2.5 billion in 2001-02 to $6.0 billion in 2010-11
* CFE Settlement - $5.5 billion in new foundation aid by 2010-11 and Facilities investment in 2005-06 budget.
* $1.2 billion in cash and tax abatements originally going to AMD - now being awarded to "The Foundry" company owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi (very oil rich country) that will have their headquarters in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxation.
Additionally, according to research from the Fiscal Policy Institute, state spending in areas other than health, education, STAR, and transportation grew by less than 3% a year from 2004 to 2008.
Why Use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund
The Governor also lays out reasons why we should not use the state's reserve funds to close the mid-year budget gap. Of primary concern is the fear of exhausting state reserves, as well as the triggering of a downgrade in the state's credit rating. Most importantly he states, a large one-shot action, such as the use of reserves, does nothing to address our state's looming out-year deficits.
We strongly recommend using the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund (TSRF). It is specifically for unplanned end of year deficits and totals $1.039 billion. It is an important backstop or cushion for getting through the current fiscal year without making $2 billion in cuts to vital services, as the Governor has proposed.
Using the TSRF also provides the state the time to have a well-informed debate over expenditures and revenues in the 2009-10 state budget. This would allow the debates to be more deliberative than usual since the Governor will be proposing his Executive Budget on December 16, 2008, which is 5 weeks earlier than required.
The Legislature cannot pass a law transferring money from the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund to the General Fund, nor can it pass a law requiring the Governor to use the money from this fund. The Governor simply has to borrow the amount needed from it on March 31, 2008, if disbursements exceed receipts and money available to make those disbursements.
The Governor and the Legislature should not make more cuts during the current fiscal year than are necessary, given this $1 billion cushion. And, most importantly, the state should not make additional cuts in services until we know the size and scope of a possible federal relief package from Washington.
Ron
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Contact: Ron Deutsch, NYFF 518-469-6769
Karen Schimke, SCAA, 518-463-1895 x25
Billy Easton, AQE, 518-461-9171
Anne Erickson, EJC, 518-462-6831
OVER 200 NON PROFITS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, UNIONS AND FAITH-BASED GROUPS TO GOVERNOR PATERSON: CUTS ALONE WILL DEVASTATE NEW YORK'S FUTURE
Groups Providing Critical State Services Call on Paterson to Stop Exempting Wealthy New Yorkers from Budget Pain and to Use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund to Fill the Gap!
(Albany, N.Y)- On the day Governor Paterson is announcing billions in budget cuts, the Better Choice Budget Campaign and the One New York: Fighting for Fairness joined together to call on the Governor and legislative leaders to abandon a budget policy that calls on working families and vulnerable New Yorkers to bear the burden of the state's fiscal crisis.
Together the two coalitions represent more than 200 non-profit organizations, faith-based groups, service providers and unions that supply front line services to many of New York's most vulnerable citizens. The two coalitions called on Paterson to examine revenue options rather than gutting services to close the state's huge budget gap. Similar events are also occurring today in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Binghamton, and in Central Islip on Long Island.
The groups called on Paterson to use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund (a "Rainy Day Fund" that currently has $1.039 billion) to bridge the mid-year budget gap, to wait for a state fiscal relief package from Washington before making massive cuts in services, and to ask the wealthiest New Yorkers to take part in the "shared sacrifice as we did in 2003.
"Today, more than ever before, the economic crisis has placed a great burden on the average New York family," said Phillip H. Smith, President of United University Professions, the union that represents 35,000 State University of New York faculty and professional staff. "Tens of thousands of qualified high school graduates and community college transfer applicants from moderate income families are denied admission to SUNY four-year colleges and universities. These institutions no longer have the funding needed to provide the faculty and professional staff to teach and counsel them. SUNY's budget has already been slashed by $148 million this year, and any further cuts would be disastrous. We must protect access to higher education for students who cannot afford private colleges, and SUNY is the only hope many students have to achieve a college education. Reducing state support for SUNY disenfranchises New York's most vulnerable families. It not only to limit their children's opportunity for a productive career, but also limits the state's opportunity to develop an educated workforce, which would speed our economic recovery."
"The Pubic Employees Federation (PEF) had identified several options to help close the budget gaps that will avoid layoffs and damaging cuts to public services," said PEF President Ken Brynien. "In this fiscal crisis it is more important than ever to make sure New York's taxpayers get the best value for their tax dollars. The state could save up to $750 million a year by reducing the use of private consultants by instituting a freeze on all new consultant contracts, requiring a budget waiver to enter into those contracts and by examining all current consultant contracts to determine which can be terminated and which can be done by state employees at a lower cost."
"The Governor's notion of shared sacrifice seems to leave the wealthiest New Yorkers out of the equation, stated Ron Deutsch, executive director, New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness. "This is very strange since the Governor believed in a balanced approach to closing the budget deficit in 2003, when he voted to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers rather than slash funding for programs and services to those most in need of state assistance. During that time, then-Senate Minority Leader Paterson helped the Legislature override the Governor's vetoes on tax increases for the wealthy because he understood that the budget could not be balanced on the backs of working families. Now, however, Governor Paterson seems to have flip-flopped, employing the same approach and rhetoric as Governor Pataki in 2003, when the state was faced with an $11.5 billion deficit."
The tax increases put in place in 2003 did not have the negative impact on the state's economy, or on the number of high-income taxpayers in the state, that Governor Pataki predicted in vetoing the Legislature's budget bills. In fact, the number of high-income returns grew steadily from about 245,000 in 2002 to an estimated 430,000 in 2007, and employment in the state increased each year that the temporary surcharge was in place. The wealthiest New Yorkers (over $200,000) also saw their incomes increase 108% between 2003-2008 (those below $200,000 only saw an increase of 15% over the same time period).
"New Yorkers can't afford mid-year cuts to education and health care. We need to follow President-elect Obama's lead, and address the fiscal crisis by asking the wealthiest New Yorkers to pay their fair share," Karen Scharff, executive director, Citizen Action of NYS.
"New York is facing hard times. However, poor and low income families are facing even harder times. They are struggling to meet their children's basic needs. Parents are struggling to keep their jobs, a roof over their children's heads, put food on the table, heat their homes and keep gas in the car. New York must be vigilant in protecting children as difficult budget decisions are being made. We join in calling for utilization of the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund until federal relief can be realized stated Karen Schimke, Executive Director, Schuyler Center for Advocacy and Analysis.
"In difficult economic times, when tough decisions need to be made about how to close deficits, we must always be guided by the principle that the state not balance the budget on the backs of those most in need," said Richard E. Barnes, executive director of the Catholic Conference. "While the Catholic Conference has not taken a position on which revenue streams should be tapped, it is clear that the options being presented must be considered. We are here to stress the importance of keeping in mind that those who have no voice - the very poor and vulnerable - are most in need of the state's limited resources. Put simply, those who need the most help should be last in line for cuts."
"We are calling on Governor Paterson and legislative leaders to recognize what a mistake it would be to cut critical programs any further. Programs like civil legal services for the poor are part of our state's social safety net and have already been cut by over 50% this year. Civil legal services are essential in saving the state money by averting crisis - helping obtain unemployment benefits, avoid homelessness and ensure access to basic needs supports like food stamps. Further cuts would be both financially and socially irresponsible," said Anne Erickson, president & CEO of Empire Justice Center.
"In times of economic calamity, the state must protect vital services like health care, emergency assistance, education and college assistance -- lifelines for so many New Yorkers. Those hardest hit by the current crisis depend on these programs for survival. Deep budget cuts, like those being discussed in Albany, will lead to thousands of layoffs at a time when unemployment is rapidly rising -- exactly what the economy doesn't need," said New York State United Teachers President Richard C. Iannuzzi. "While government is indeed obligated to look at cost-savings, there are other alternatives it should pursue first to fix New York's budget mess. We ask lawmakers to take a much harder look at increasing revenues. After all, essential services haven't exceeded their budget; revenues have fallen short."
"New York State has a constitutional obligation to provide the funding needed to educate every child. After years of court orders in the CFE case, the Governor & both houses of the legislature made a promise in law to provide the dollars our school children need. The idea that the Governor would break this promise and cut education funding in order to keep his promise to New York's highest income earners not to raise their taxes is not only unfair, it is unreasonable." Billy Easton, executive director, Alliance for Quality Education.
"Medicaid provides a lifeline for low-income New Yorkers and it must be protected. The state should not be attempting to cut its way out of this crisis by putting the health care safety net in jeopardy. We must continue the 'patient-first' health care agenda, and more wisely spend our health care dollars. Medicaid is not just about hospitals, it is first and foremost about people," stated Lara Kassel, advocacy coordinator, Medicaid Matters NY.
"Voters throughout New York and the United States made it clear on Election Day that they wanted change. We hope Governor Paterson was listening. They're tired of politicians who bail out Wall Street while the poor and middle class are threatened with the loss of their homes and don't have enough to feed their families. Even Republican voters in NY believe that millionaires deserve a tax hike. When times are bad, you need to stimulate the economy by putting more money, not less, in the hands of those struggling to make ends meet. And with the life savings of so many New Yorkers have been flooded away by the misbehavior of Wall Street financiers, this certainly seems like the time for the state to dip into our rainy day fund," said Mark Dunlea, executive director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State.
"The Wall Street Meltdown was not created by working men and women and they must not be forced to bear the burnt of New York State's Budget Crisis. Destruction of the public workforce, schools, state services and health care would leave our state with a terrible economy, hasten our decline and dramatically impact the ability of small businesses to survive. The state must be more realistic in its solutions to repair the budget shortfalls. Just as the federal government has moved quickly to support the financial sector with almost a trillion dollars, so too must Washington provide the assistance necessary for New York State and other states," said the statement from Alan Lubin, executive vice-president of NYSUT and Bruce Ventimiglia, President and Chief Executive Officer of Saratoga Capital Management, LLC : Co- Chairmen : BALCONY : The Business and Labor Coalition of New York.
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics (recently appointed chairman of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors), explains in his March 2008 letter to Governor Paterson and Legislative leaders that an increase in the tax on the portions of families' incomes over some relatively high level is the least damaging mechanism for balancing state budgets during recessions. In contrast, cuts in government spending on goods and services that are produced locally (like education and health care) and cuts in transfer payments to lower-income families are most damaging to the economy, as they come closest to taking dollar for dollar out of the local economy.
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From http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/17/news/doc4948840c21870766305773.txt ...
Plenty of pain to go around in state budget
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 3:06 AM EST
By The Associated Pres
Associated Press
ALBANY - Gov. David Paterson is calling New Yorkers and almost every business sector to pitch in for at least the next couple of years to end what he calls the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
His play book is a proposed 2009-10 budget of $121.1 billion, which includes layoffs, reduced school aid, 88 new or higher fees and the early release of 1,600 inmates.
The proposal that Paterson released to the state Legislature on Tuesday - his first since taking office - would increase total spending by 1.1 percent, or $1.3 billion, and close $15.4 billion in deficits over two years.
The plan includes cutting school aid by 3.3 percent, or $698 million; increasing SUNY and CUNY tuition by 14 and 15 percent, respectively; increasing some motor vehicle and fishing fees; allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores; increasing the sales tax on luxuries; and creating new state and local sales taxes on music, movie and game downloads through services like iTunes.
Paterson's plan also calls for cutting 3,108 jobs from the state workforce of 196,000. Attrition would account for most of the reduction, but the proposal includes 521 layoffs in 2009-10, largely through consolidating state offices.
New York City would get whacked for more than a half-billion dollars in reduced school aid, municipal aid and school tax relief. And because the city's fiscal year is different from the state's, these cuts would hit current operations without time to prepare.
"There is no sharing of the sacrifice here," said Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association union, which represents state workers who will face a brief delay in pay to save the state money. "It's working people getting stuck with the bill."
Paterson used history to underscore his plan, even as it immediately was criticized by lawmakers and lobbyists for nickle-and-diming the middle class.
"In his inaugural address, President Franklin Roosevelt told a nation in the grips of the Great Depression that now is 'the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly,'" the Democratic governor said.
"He warned the American people must not shrink from 'honestly facing' the dark reality of the country," Paterson said. "Today, we, too, cannot shrink from the challenges ahead."
Paterson said that while annual spending growth in the last five years averaged 7.8 percent, the first budget he's proposing would increase state operating funds by just a half of 1 percent. That would put state funds - the figure that excludes federal aid - at $79.8 billion, which he said is the lowest figure in 14 years.
But the budget is far from final. The Legislature still must agree to the spending plan that's due April 1, though Paterson hopes to seal a budget deal earlier to more quickly enact spending cuts attacking the deficits. He has blamed the deficits on decades of overspending, often for special interests led by labor unions, and on the Wall Street meltdown hitting an industry that has provided 20 percent of state revenues in recent years.
"It's going to be a very difficult year," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Monday night after he was briefed privately on the budget. "But I'm confident the Assembly, Senate and governor will be able to work together."
Most sectors whose funding would be held flat from the current year say that amounts to a cut, one they can't afford.
"The governor has shifted the unbearable burden of closing the budget gap onto the shoulders of school children, while sparing the wealthiest New Yorkers," said Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education. AQE supported a tax on New Yorkers making over $1 million, which Paterson has so far rejected.
School districts and the New York State Association of Counties have warned that reduced state funding, more unfunded mandates like a 2010 hike in the welfare grant that Paterson proposes, and even flat funding could force higher local property taxes.
"The spending reductions in this budget proposal are painful," said NYSAC President Sarah Purdy. "County leaders are engaged in this process and are willing to work through this crisis together with the governor and state Legislature to continue essential services in a way that does not increase the burden on New York's taxpayers."
Taxpayers will feel the pinch in several ways. Besides potential increases in local property taxes, Paterson wants to boost income tax revenue by closing what he considers to be loopholes and making other adjustments short of changing the rates. In addition, Paterson proposes eliminating the STAR rebate program - a state subsidy that he said has failed to achieve the promised goal of reducing local school taxes.
He would end the rebate checks sent to homeowners and the corresponding enhanced New York City personal income tax credit. That will save more than $1.7 billion. Paterson would continue at previous years' levels the STAR tax exemption - a savings off tax bills rather than through a rebate check often delivered at election time - and the New York City rebate.
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From http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/doc49484176818ec606532126.txt ...
State budget highlights
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:04 PM EST
HERE ARE some of the key proposals in Gov. David Paterson's state budget for 2009-10:
* Reduce state aid to public schools by 3.3 percent.
* Increase State University of New York tuition by $620 a year, or about 14 percent, and City University of New York tuition by $600, about 15 percent.
* Create a $350 million program to provide lower-interest loans to as many as 45,000 college students.
* Increase driver's license and registration fees by 25 percent and require new license plates at a cost of $25.
* Lift the limit on how much state tax can be charged for gasoline. The state's tax currently is limited to 8 cents per gallon.
* Authorize video slot machines for the Belmont Park race track, which Paterson says would generate a franchise payment of at least $370 million in 2010-11.
* Have the state adopt New York City's policy of charging sales tax on personal services such as hair cuts, massages and credit rating services.
* Reinstate the state's sales tax on clothing and footwear purchases under $110, while allowing two tax-free periods per year.
* Put a sales tax on cable and satellite TV and radio.
* Impose no increase in broad-based income tax rates, but have New Yorkers pay more in income taxes through the closing of what Paterson considers loopholes.
* Impose a sales tax on items that can be downloaded, like movies, music and games.
* Increase the welfare grant in 2010 while making government-subsidized insurance available to more of the working poor, in part by ending some anti-fraud measures.
* Make it easier for the poor and working poor to get government health coverage by eliminating some anti-fraud measures.
* Allow 19- and 20-year-olds who do not live with their parents to enroll in Family Health Plus, the state health plan, under the same rules as if they lived at home.
* Offer more outreach to help returning military veterans and their families get the government services to which they are entitled.
* Increase assessments and reduce funding for hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. The result could be higher health insurance costs for consumers and employers.
* Create an "obesity tax" of about 18 percent on sugary drinks from non-diet sodas to Gatorade to raise $404 million.
* Create a $1 million obesity prevention program.
* Take unspent funding for graduate medical education and redirect it to the state's pool to cover the care of indigents at teaching hospitals.
* Increase funds for indigent care in clinics and funding to food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.
* Increase funding for programs to prevent lead poisoning in children, mostly in poor city neighborhoods. The cost would be $2.5 million in 2009-10 and $5 million in 2010-11.
* Crack down on failings of the state's Empire Zone program, which provides tax breaks to companies in exchange for creating or retaining jobs. Paterson wants to cut the program in half by requiring companies already getting big, multiyear tax breaks to prove they have created jobs they promised. These actions would be expected to save $272 million in 2009-10 and $292 million in 2010-11.
* Give pay raises to 1,200 state judges, whose haven't had on in 10 years.
* Leave 213 state parks and historic sites open but reduce services and add fees for camping, cabin rentals, golf and marina use.
* Require deposits on bottles of water and other non-carbonated beverages, with unclaimed refunds supporting the Environmental Protection Fund for buying open space.
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Paterson's budget keeps $8 million in for Walkway; adds about $4 billion in new taxes, fees
BY JOSEPH SPECTOR * JOURNAL ALBANY BUREAU * DECEMBER 16, 2008
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081216/NEWS12/81216007&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
ALBANY - In his 2009-10 budget proposal today, Gov. David Paterson is calling for $8 million for the Walkway over the Hudson bridge.
Half of the money would come from the Environmental Protection Fund and the other half from bonded capital funds. The $8 million is in line with the amount of state aid that Walkway expected next year, which means this budget would not hinder efforts to complete the project.
But the budget also called for massive cuts to state education and health-care aid, an elimination of a property-tax rebate program for homeowners and 88 new taxes and fees.
The moves have been expected for months as Paterson tries to close an unprecedented $15.4 billion deficit over the next two years. And few programs are being spared.
The proposed $121 billion budget proposal, released in a presentation this morning, calls for keeping spending growth flat from the current fiscal year, which expires March 31.
But to keep up with increases in costs and a decline in revenue, particularly from the struggles on Wall Street, Paterson wants to trim school aid, limit the growth in Medicaid spending and reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes, and lower pension benefits for new state and local government employees. He also wants to reduce the state workforce by 3,100 jobs -- including 521 layoffs.
School aid would be cut by an average of 3.3 percent, or nearly $700 million from the current fiscal year, to a total of nearly $21 billion -- stoking fears from education officials that local property taxes would need to be increased to make up the difference. Cuts in aid would range from 3 percent to 13 percent based on a district's wealth, budget officials said.
Seven local school districts could receive double digit decreases in state aid under the governor's proposal. At the top of the list is Rhinebeck with a $373,000 decrease, or -14.46. Wappingers schools could receive $6.1 million less next year, or -12.30.
The growth in aid to hospitals and nursing homes would be reduced as part of a $3.5 billion plan to lower health-care costs. Even with the funding reductions, New York would still rank first in the nation in per capita Medicaid spending at $2,283, aides said.
Paterson warns that the fiscal problems are the result of years of overspending.
"We have lived beyond our means," he said during his budget address to members of the Legislature and elected leaders from across the state. "We have made too many promises and made not enough sacrifices."
Paterson is presenting the budget to the state Legislature a month earlier than usual in hopes of getting an early agreement to cut spending. The Legislature is required to pass a spending plan by April 1, but Paterson wants it passed by March 1, saying it would save the state about $1.3 billion.
He challenged lawmakers that if they don't like his proposals, they should recommend their own ideas. His budget presentation was met with just light applause.
Some lawmakers warned that the budget cuts could lead to higher local property taxes because costs for schools and programs would get passed down to the local level.
"To our residents, it doesn't matter which pocket it's coming out of," said Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, Rockland County.
Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, said the budget woes "is one we have never seen, and obviously it's going to require dramatic changes."
The Democratic governor avoids calling for a broad-based income tax increase, but the budget includes 88 new or increased fees and 10 new public safety fines. In total, the budget calls for about $4 billion in new taxes and fees to offset losses of revenue from Wall Street.
Some of the new charges include an 18 percent sales tax on soft drinks, called an "obesity tax," eliminating the sales-tax exemption on clothing and footwear under $110 and imposing a sales tax on cable and satellite radio.
Critics warn that the increases in fees will only further hurt the state's economy.
"Raising and imposing new taxes penalizes New York's middle class families, drives employers away and will ultimately worsen, prolong and deepen this economic recession," said Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady.
To save $1.4 billion, Paterson would also eliminate a STAR rebate tax program started in 2006 in which homeowners receive a check each fall to help offset the state's high property taxes. Paterson would still keep the larger STAR rebate program intact; that program provides tax relief off of homeowner's property tax bills.
The budget also calls for a $620 a year increase in tuition for state colleges and universities, but Paterson wants to create a higher education loan program to help students afford school.
Aid to municipalities would remain flat, yet eliminates a proposed increase in aid of about $61 million. Paterson also wants to cut back on spending for the much maligned Empire Zone economic development program, which provides tax breaks to companies, saving the state $272 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy said the cut in growth in aid was expected, but he's hoping the budget plan will give cities less unfunded mandates.
"We're looking for more local control and more ways to control our spending," he said.
Six youth detention facilities would be closed, including the Rochester Community Residential Home.
The pension changes for state and local workers would increase the minimum retirement age from 62 to 55, require employees to contribute to the pension fund after their 10th year of service and no longer allow overtime to be included in calculating retirement benefits.
Unions already vowed to fight any cuts in state services and jobs. Unions have called on Paterson to raise income taxes on the wealthy, which Paterson has not ruled out but said wouldn't solve the fiscal crisis.
"The middle class will have to pay more and get less while the wealthiest New Yorkers slide by under the Governor's proposal," said CSEA President Danny Donohue. "There is no sharing of the sacrifice here - it's working people getting stuck with the bill."
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