Interesting op-ed from The Saratogian about the crazy state of property taxes. Think you’re paying too much in property taxes? Well it may have something to do with the fact that your neighbor declared his home a “condominium,” on which the property taxes are about double. Now, ain’t that some shit?
Jon Greenbaum posts this morning on the party millionaires have been having on Wall Street and the “shared sacrifices” Governor Patterson now expects the rest of us to swallow:
Governor Paterson is confronted with a $15 billion deficit and is talking about shared sacrifice. He is asking us to tighten our belts, proposing $2.5 billion in cuts from our children’s classrooms (on top of reneging on a court ordered increase of $1.9 billion in education funding the Governor is proposing and additional $700 million in education cuts).
But not everybody will feel the burden of these budget cuts in the same way. The cuts will have a disproportionate impact on upstate residents with low incomes and people of color. But aside from a symbolic gesture of taxing things like furs and jets, the Governor is not proposing that the wealthiest New Yorkers step up to pay their fair share.
I’m still having a hard time understanding why people keep calling Patterson a progressive. No progressive in his right mind would insist on VAT taxes – which are inherently regressive, hitting lower incomes harder – instead of what is logical: an income tax policy more in line with the rest of the country.
We’re cutting back on state aid to schools; we’re putting an 18% tax on non-diet soda (call it the Fat VAT); but thank goodness, Renn Square gets it’s frickin’ money.
And here I thought there was no good news in the new budget!
I guess I don’t understand how the idea of an income tax hike is so onerous to a supposedly progressive politician that he chooses the path of regressive use taxes as a means to avoid one.
I don’t have much else to say on the matter except to point out for those who don’t know what a regressive tax is that a $45 charge on renewing your license plates is going to be a much bigger chunk out of the budget of a guy making $20k than it is out of a guy making 200k.
Granted, we didn’t really elect the guy and the guy we did elect was too busy getting rough sex out of hookers to bother governing. But I guess I would have expected better.
I find this strange: Channel 10 News is reporting today that two school districts have approved huge renovation programs. I’m all for improving schools, but apparently folks in Irondequoit and Churchville-Chili know something about the economy and the state budget the rest of us don’t. Either that, or they are possessed of an irrepressibly sunny disposition.
The D&C has an interesting little tidbit about the plans for New York State to buy up lands around Canadice Lake. The really interesting para is here:
Canadice officials now intend to clear the way for the long-discussed state purchase by adjusting their zoning rules, perhaps as early as mid-December. But speed is of the essence because of worries that state funding could evaporate in the face of multibillion-dollar deficits.
So, in other words: we’re already ass-deep in debt and know it, but let’s see if we can just sneak in one more check-writing good time before they close the bar. I’m hardly a deficit hawk, but this strikes me as pretty bad.
DFE Blogger and Rochester City Councilwoman Carla Palumbo reports on the state of the current proposed City budget. Notice how much different the City’s budget process is from the County’s. What? You’ve never heard about the County process? Yeah, that’s the point:
» Firetrucks and Rec Centers… » Carla Palumbo
The City Budget process is almost to the end…City Council’s vote on Tuesday night will wrap up over a month of budget review, hearings and deliberations. There are a few major changes proposed in this budget — the two drawing the most ire are the changes to the Fire Dept and Rec Centers After-school programs. Given the tight budget there were some fairly significant cuts to City staff, mostly in IT — but the Rec Center After-school program is being cut and the Fire Dept methodology changed with a loss of 16 positions (not lay offs, loss is by attrition)
NYSUT is fighting to keep the state’s share of special education funding for elementary school kids the same, whereas Spitzer’s new plan aims to reduce state funding. This is in addition to the slipping promise of additional funding by the state. The NYSUT blog picks up the story:
Under current law, the state reimburses counties for 59.5 percent of approved costs for preschool special education administration costs. The governor’s proposal would require districts where each special ed child resides to reimburse the child’s resident county — adding a $46 million cost burden onto districts already set to receive less state aid than promised last year.