To say we are not having an affect on the local media would be wrong. It appears that they at the Buffalo News are finally waking up, maybe years to late but, the are waking up. We will have to watch and see where they go from here like, who will they endorse in the upcoming elections. Will they endorse the likes of Antoinne Thompson? Bill Stachowski? Dale Volker? Sam Hoyt? Robin Schimminger? Crystal Peoples? etc, etc…..?
Everyone wants to pick a winner but we need to elect people that will stand up and say NO for Western New York, say NO to downstate and New York City. Say NO to any and all new taxes and fees, NO to higher burdens to the people of Western New York. Cut the costs of medicaid and education funding. We have the most expensive systems around the country and they are the worst and have FAILED all of us.
Get rid of ALL the Authorities starting with the Thruway Authority, say YES to a New Pension system and pass a Law to TAX retirement pension NOW to ALL who collect pension and stop the healthcare for all public employees for the rest of their lives after a few short years on the job.
The list is endless and the time to act was years ago, BUT now will work, we have NO choice. Do it, call and ittitate your senator and assemblymen and be relentless. Tell Sheldon Silver and Malcolm Smith to sit down and shutup. It is time for US to take this state back! End of subject.
A call to action: Contact your elected officials to do something about your high taxes
First, stop the bleeding.
New York State, especially upstate New York, is losing its lifeblood of jobs and, as the jobs drain away, its population. There are other consequences as well: Two more congressional seats are likely to be lost after the 2010 Census.
The most frustrating of the reasons for the decline is this: New York is killing itself through state government policy choices, dictated by elected officials, that pander to special interests and political powerhouses.
New York’s governor at least warns of the danger. The State Legislature ignores it, and is largely responsible for it.
The most dismaying aspect of that is that the members of the Senate and Assembly, particularly their leaders, refuse fully to acknowledge the problem, refuse to recognize that their failure to act responsibly deepened the problem and are singularly focused on what they always have done … taking care of themselves, the public sector unions and other vested interests that help them with cash to get re-elected.
The Legislature’s strategy has been to wait and see if the problem goes away. It won’t. Even if the recession is ending, experts foresee a “jobless recovery” and a retrenchment that will not return either New York or America to the unregulated euphoric expansion that was mistaken for sustainable prosperity.
Other states, most notably California, face the same fiscal problems and have reacted with necessary cuts. In the meantime, New York’s policies have been based far more on politics than on principles of good governance. The focus of lawmakers has centered on the preservation of political power rather than on doing what’s right for everyday New Yorkers. The advent of single-party control of both houses allowed that badly-rooted practice to bear rotten fruit.
On the extra editorial pages that follow these, we have outlined the problem. And we call on you to make your voice heard, by contacting the legislators who supposedly work for you but continue to raise your taxes. Tell them to do what’s right.
That starts with cutting spending, just like regular people do when facing money problems. It should not … must not … involve another round of new taxes and fees, because New Yorkers already lead the nation in state and local tax burden and the new taxes already imposed on high incomes are driving individuals, businesses and jobs from the state. And it should not involve more borrowing, because New Yorkers also already shoulder the heaviest state debt burden in the nation.
What’s called for is rolling back taxes and fees, rather than increasing them, to make New York more attractive to employers who have to decide whether to stay or move out of state.
During the past three years New York has added the equivalent of 12,990 new full-time positions in the state work force. Some 8,000 workers were hired after Gov. David A. Paterson called for a hiring freeze last fall. Lawmakers should roll back the state government work force to the levels of just a few years ago, saving billions of dollars. They could enact pension reforms that might have relatively small impacts now but provide major long-term relief for the state, for municipalities and for school districts … and the taxpayers who fund them.
They could enact structural reforms that would increase transparency in the way the state does business, fold off-budget state authorities back into the budget process to clarify what state costs really are, make state agencies and office-holders more accountable to the public and less open to special-interest influence.
They could consider benefit changes in the costly Medicaid programs … New York is the national leader in Medicaid spending … that would protect basic services for the poor but bring New York more in line with the national average in terms of the costly extra services covered here.
They could consider a property tax cap so that governments don’t repeatedly penalize those with the greatest ownership stakes in this region.
Everything costs more in New York, from health insurance to education to the cost of doing business. The only people who can fix that are the elected officials in Albany. If they won’t, or can’t, they should step aside and allow those who can to take charge. If the current Legislature doesn’t fix it, voters … who already have expressed their lack of confidence in them … should exercise their rights to set things back in order with an entirely new Legislature.
Your lawmakers will do nothing unless they’re told to.
“pass a Law to TAX retirement pension NOW to ALL who collect pension and stop the healthcare for all public employees for the rest of their lives after a few short years on the job.”
Are you out of your mind? On one hand you scream to cut taxes – on the other you want a tax on pensions, and denial of health care benefits to all who have EARNED them.
I collect a pension of $30k/year from the NYPD – that for 25 years of getting shot at, stabbed, being hospitalized a dozen times, having my family being rushed by police car to hospitals because I have gotten Last Rites. I EARNED that lousy $30k pension,pal – and you want to tax it?
Here’s another one for you, since you seem to write on sheer emotion rather than facts … in order for a public employee to take their health care package with them, they must serve a minimum of 15 years on uninterrupted service, or be retired on a job connected disability.
I guess I will have to remove this blog from my blogroll if this is the sort of pap being offered up here.
Up here if you serve one year in public office you get health care for life. Padded salaries for the higher pensions, overtime galore for the higher pension check, teachers getting pensions and moving to Florida and paying no taxes on their pension. Lawyers getting full time benefits and pensions for part time work, etc…..
Cops deserve their pension more than any political appointee, hack or politician that sucks off the system.
Last I heard “up there” was still the same state as “down here.” I don’t know of any laws that apply differently to particular regions of NY State, so I’d like to see the cite for that.
To my mind there are many other percs associated with being a politician than just a pension that should be brought more into the public eye. As for teachers moving … that is their right. I’m in the process of getting the hell out of this socialist state myself because I simply can no longer afford to live here. Should I be denied my pension too? Do not people have the right to live where they wish – where there is some semblence of freedom and low taxes instead of this dump called New York?
It probably costs me almost as much as my pension gives me (the one I paid into for 25 years) to live in this state.