Good Monday Morning,
I must apologize to Mongolians, residents of Tennessee and the mayor of Albany, Oregon for not having been insulted or otherwise abused in my more then ten years of publishing this newsletter. I will do what I can to be more inclusive in the future. To the Unitarian who complained he has not been insulted, please refer to the January 7, 2011 edition of News That Matters and I think you’ll be satisfied.
Online Tag Sale:
As I begin the process of unloading my stuff, I’ll be offering it first to this list before it goes public.
FoxFire books, First Edition, Volumes One through Nine, 1972, in Good Condition. $125.
Paasche Airbrush kit – $30
Paasche Model H single action airbrush kit with two Type H3HC3 tips and compressor hose.
Campbell Hausfeld Compressor – $60
A slightly used Campbell Hausfeld Standard Duty, portable air compressor with hoses and original warranty. Great for airbrush work.
DeVILBISS FinishLine FLG-611 – $80
Never used DeVILBISS FinishLine FLG-611 airbrush gun for auto/van/truck finishing. With original documentation.
Black & Decker Circular Saw – $25
9amp, 7 1/4″ blade, 1 1/2 horsepower
Call 845 554-5119 or write to jeff@planputnam.org
See images here
Do you remember that hike a took a few weeks ago in Fahnestock state park where I continuously plunged my feet into deep slushy snow, creeks and streams, photographed and wrote about in the March 4th, Things To Do Edition? Well, I took the same hike last Friday and never got my feet wet once. It turns out it’s much easier when you’re not slogging through foot-deep slush and crossing streams that aren’t swollen by several inches of rain and snowmelt. It turns out it’s just around 2.6 miles and takes a little more than an hour… when there’s no slush, snow or wet, cold feet.
If you’d like to follow this hike and you’re a Google Earth user, here’s a link to a kmz file that shows the route.
I attended the Nan Hayworth and Steven Katz community forum in Patterson on Saturday and my bullshit meter is plum tuckered out. Ms. Hayworth didn’t answer a single question; she either deflected or answered the question she wished was asked or went off on some ideological tangent.
At one point early on while discussing budget cuts she said her party had proposed budget cuts but that Obama had proposed none. Of course that isn’t true as the President had recommended more than $60 billion in cuts, so using that as a base everything else she had to say was immediately suspect.
How can a representative in Congress tell such a lie and expect people to believe it? Apparently many in the room did believe her which tells me they must be getting their news from Al Jazeera. Oh, and she loves Indian Point, says it’s safe and essential but said nothing about alternative energy sources to wean us off imported oil. And she defended congressional action to cut $60 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting but said nothing about the $600 BILLION spent at the Pentagon.
On the question of why several major American corporations had paid no income taxes she said she didn’t want to raise taxes on anyone. She repeated the Republican mantra that no economy has ever grown with raised taxes conveniently forgetting that FDR raised taxes during the depression, used those dollars to put Americans to work thus growing the economy and set the stage for pulling us out of the depression. But in 1938 under severe pressure from Congressional Republicans, he lowered the Federal tax rate, people lost their jobs and the economy shrunk again until the beginning of the war two years later. In 1994, Bill Clinton also raised income taxes and by the end of his tenure the nation had full employment and a federal budget surplus.
But redefining history was the rule of the day and she and Mr. Katz are good and I’m sure they’ll get better as time goes on.
Assemblyman Steven Katz insisted – repeatedly – that 2 million people have left NY State due to high taxes. Where he got that information is unknown, but he said it over and again. The US Census bureau shows something different:
Census 2000: 18,976,811
Census 2010: 19,541,453
That’s an increase of 3%, not a decrease.
So I must ask where he got his information.
My Love/Hate relationship with Patterson Supervisor Mike Griffin continues unabated. He singled me out for ‘speaking out’ while others were equally vocal and someone sent a County Sheriff to stand nearby just in case. Luckily he was young and handsome so if he had to escort me out it would have been a like a short date. Win-win all around!
I’m sure Vitelli from the Examiner and whoever was there from the Putnam Times will have a boring run-down of the afternoon without the fireworks, lies, mistruths and recreations of history, later this week.
Oh, I just remembered, there was a guy there from the Tea Party who didn’t know what the USDA was or did and was just furthering the impression that, oh hell… I’m just gonna get in trouble.
State of the County:
Putnam’s Foreclosure Rate:
From Nick Reisman at the Politics on the Hudson Blog:
A report from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued today on New York’s foreclosure rate found that Putnam County had the highest rate in the state per 1,000 homes.Putnam County’s foreclosure rate is 15.8 per 1,000 homes, more than double the statewide average. Foreclosures were also highest in Orange, Nassau, Suffolk and Rockland counties, all areas that have expensive housing stock.
For counties near us the rates were:
Putnam: 15.8 per thousand
Orange: 13.0 per thousand
Rockland: 11.6 per thousand
Westchester: 7.6 per thousand
Dutchess: 4.6 per thousand
Sullivan: 2.1 per thousand
Thanks to MYH for sending that along.
There is still a steady stream of long-term residents leaving the county. People are accepting less than value for their homes just to get out from under the crushing burden of their property tax bills and the all-around excessive cost of living where the country once began. And all the commercial development in the planning and wishing stages will only make it more expensive and onerous to live here. Just ask anyone on Long Island or Westchester or Rockland if their property tax bills have been lowered due to the bulldozers and paving machines.
Contrary to Assemblyman Steven Katz’ assertion that people are leaving the state in droves, and though some certainly have, Putnam residents are largely fleeing to nearby counties within NY State. According to Forbes magazine, in 2008, 887 Putnam County residents moved to Dutchess county, 940 to Westchester, 44 to Rockland, 62 to Orange, 38 to Ulster, 26 to Columbia, 17 to Greene, 51 to Queens and 51 to Nassau. Of those leaving the state the vast majority, 331, moved to nearby Fairfield County in CT where the only thing that’s actually lower when all is said and done, is the sales tax.
I was having a chat with a friend last week as he pointed out each of his neighbors who used to work in the trades noting how each had taken work elsewhere and how difficult it must be for them to make ends meet. Many are lucky enough to have two family incomes but they’re just barely hanging on. There must be more to life than struggling to survive, deciding at the end of each week which bills will get paid and which will not and counting the amounting debt just to stay alive.
Carpenters, painters, paper-hangers and electricians are sitting idle, worrying if they’re going to make it or not and those with a little money in the bank are leaving the county either for work or leaving the county, period.
So what is the county doing to support their own? The boards over at Consumer Affairs are targeting their in-county competition for harassment to secure the few remaining jobs and forcing their neighbors out of business. The county legislature has pledged to continue the highest sales tax rates in the region and our County Executive and Legislature refuse to cut the county budget and school boards adamantly refuse to cut management spending.
An article in the NYJN yesterday told about how four-dozen high-level county management employees were being sought by a union for collective bargaining rights as if they’re $80,000 a year plus benefit salaries required a union.
What about a union for the trades? Imagine what concessions we might be able to get from the county for the extra taxes we’re forced to pay just for the right to work, taxes that if we do not pay we are refused the right to work?
There are no relief dollars for blue collar workers, no unemployment pay, no tax relief. These workers are the backbone of Putnam County, and the county seems hell-bent on forcing them out of work and ultimately out of the county both through its refusal to promote their work or through fines and penalties for doing something as simple as trying to put food on their tables by not paying the county it’s legal protection racket money.
Instead, the county is doing everything it can to make us pay more. For example, Consumer Affairs wants landscapers to take a class in phosphorus reduction, which is noble. But they want landscapers to pay for it even though the county has already taken $250 from each and every one, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! The county wants its contractors to have a lead abatement licenses but is unwilling to assist in paying the cost.
Whether it be through sales taxes, through fees, through hidden taxes and other methods, our county government is determined to bleed you dry one tax at a time, until you, too, join the parade of long-term residents fleeing the county. I’m actually surprised the County Executive and Legislature have not instituted a “leaving the county tax” just to get your ass one final time.
Later this year there will be elections for County Executive, several County legislative seats and your town boards. If you vote for the incumbent party, as you always do, you’re only going to get more of the same and you are, like it or not, directly responsible for the government we have which is the one you deserve.
If you like the current situation here in Putnam County I can only assume you hold a protected job with a municipality or you work for a firm which has been guaranteed work through their “proper” political donations. And while those days are clearly not over as politicians race to fill the void left by the retirement of Senator Leibell, you may be soon be working for a county which has no one living in it.
Putnam Valley’s Ariane Orenstein passed away earlier this month after a long fight with cancer. Her last public post to the world on her Facebook page was, “What’s on my mind 24/7? cancer.” The post before, urging Congress not to de-fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting… a fighter to the end!
She will be missed.
The Philipstown Depot Theater will be performing four original one-act plays on April 8,9,10 in her memory with details to follow in Friday’s Things To Do edition.
And now, the News:
- Gov. Cuomo’s All-Cuts Budget
- Putting America back to work with clean energy
- Border Patrol Beats a Man to Death
Gov. Cuomo’s All-Cuts Budget
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has rightly argued that painful spending cuts will be needed to close New York’s projected $10 billion deficit. The hard truth is that it is impossible to cut spending deeply without cutting the state’s huge outlays for education and health care. That means that New York’s most vulnerable citizens — schoolchildren, the elderly, the poor, the sick — will feel a disproportionate amount of the pain.
Governor Cuomo has vowed to make the tough decisions and not to be swayed by special-interest pleadings. But he is refusing to impose any new taxes or even continue a current surcharge on New York’s wealthiest and least vulnerable citizens.
That makes no fiscal sense. So we have to assume that for Mr. Cuomo, some special interests are more special than others. Just extending the surcharge on New York’s highest earners through 2012 would add an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue to the upcoming budget and $4 billion the following fiscal year.
Without that surcharge and other targeted tax increases, Mr. Cuomo’s proposed cuts in education and other vital services will inevitably be deeper and more painful than necessary, harming both individuals and the foundation for the state’s future economic growth.
The governor has proposed his no-new-taxes budget and is now negotiating with state lawmakers. The Legislature is required to approve a final budget by April 1. That means there is only slightly more than a week to decide these critical issues.
Putting America back to work with clean energy
March 18, 2011
Investing in green jobs will immediately address two of our country’s most important challenges: lowering unemployment while improving our energy system. For those reasons alone, these investments would be worthwhile. But they will also significantly improve our economy in the long term, making it more productive and efficient.
With nearly 14 million Americans unable to find work right now, jobs are the most pressing immediate problem facing the U.S. economy. At the same time, we need to rapidly move toward clean energy sources that will protect the economy from volatile imported fossil-fuel prices and help prevent the most extreme results of climate change. Policymakers have the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Green jobs—jobs created or retained through investments in renewable and efficient energy technologies and processes—are a key way to solve these overlapping challenges.
Over the past two years, the Obama administration and congressional leaders have taken critical steps to create jobs by moving our country toward a more efficient, lower-carbon economy powered by the clean energy sources of the future. They have instituted financial incentives for clean energy investment, continued regulatory processes that will level the playing field for renewable and efficient energy sources, and have proposed an ambitious plan for the United States to source 80 percent of its power from clean sources by 2035.
Border Patrol Beats a Man to Death
By DEE MOORE
SAN DIEGO (CN) – Two dozen Border Patrol agents beat a man to death at the San Ysidro Port of entry while onlookers screamed for them to stop, his family says in Federal Court.
“At one point, there were approximately 20 to 25 agents taking part in beating, kicking or punching Mr. [Anastacio] Hernandez-Rojas …” the complaint states. “The beating continued for several minutes. At some point, federal officer Doe 3 pulled out a Taser and fired it at Mr. Hernandez-Rojas while he lay beaten on the ground. He discharged the Taser several times. Mr. Hernandez-Rojas stopped screaming after being Tased.
“Paramedics arrived on scene. By the time of their arrival Mr. Hernandez had not been breathing for at least 8 minutes. Mr. Hernandez-Rojas was transported to Sharp Chula Vista [hospital] and pronounced brain dead.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Thanks for your thoughtful response Jeff. What NY has been losing is middle class tax-payers. As a result of the 2010 Census findings we will lose 2 Congressional Representatives.
http://www.forecastsandtrends.com/article.php/722/
“The Empire State will lose two of its 27 seats in the House, leaving it ‘with the smallest Congressional delegation it has had in 200 years,’ reports Raymond Hernandez in The New York Times, meaning that in 2020, the state will likely be overtaken by Florida as the third most populous in the union.”
Siting the NY climate as a reason for your mom’s and neighbors emmigration out of the state is anecdotal so I will provide my own personal experiences. Starting with the petition signature process throught the primary and general election, I knocked on over 900 doors and encountered person after person who was either thinking of moving in the near future or had already started the process of moving. Always they explained due to a combination of their taxes and overall cost of living. This is highlighted by how many houses remain unsold and are in foreclosure.
Insteresting you mention the stock transfer tax. It was brought to Steve’s attention during the campaign and he has been looking into it. This tax had been in place until 1980 in which every transfer was taxed with a 25% surcharge. Since 1980 there is a zero surcharge. This is not a small issue and he will due his due diligence before making any decision.
However I will argue that NY does not has a problem of not charging enough in taxes, it has a serious problem with spending too much. Westchester’s Medicaide plan includes dental and vision care. Most middle class tax payers I know including myself cannot afford these for themselves yet we are paying through our taxes to provide it to others. That’s just not right.
NY has become a state only affordable to the very rich and the poor. Middle class need not apply.
We are in a serious crises that must be addressed if we are ever to climb out of it. Cutting around the edges will not save this state. Taxing the rich more will not save this state. Responsible government and fiscal policy is no longer a luxury.
> Thanks for your thoughtful response Jeff. What NY has been losing is middle class tax-payers. As a result of the 2010 Census findings we will lose 2 Congressional Representatives. http://www.forecastsandtrends.com/article.php/722/ “The Empire State will lose two of its 27 seats in the House, leaving it ‘with the smallest Congressional delegation it has had in 200 years,’ reports Raymond Hernandez in The New York Times, meaning that in 2020, the state will likely be overtaken by Florida as the
You know, people move for a variety of reasons and if NY was losing population we might take the time to find out why. But the state is not losing population, it has grown over the years and continues to do so. It’s that other states are growing more quickly and it’s really not a race to the top or the bottom, it’s just that people are finding the winters cold or have family elsewhere are are going to some other place for some other reason.
The Assemblyman’s original assertion that people are leaving NY because of the taxes might be true if the population of those leaving was not being augmented by new people moving in.
> third most populous in the union.” Siting the NY climate as a reason for your mom’s and neighbors emmigration out of the state is anecdotal so I will provide my own personal experiences. Starting with the petition signature process throught the primary and general election, I knocked on over 900 doors and encountered person after person who was either thinking of moving in the near future or had already started the process of moving. Always they explained due to a combination of their taxes and overall cost of living. This is highlighted by how many houses remain unsold and are in foreclosure. Insteresting you mention
I, too, ran for office and knocked doors as well and heard the stories. But when you press and dig a little deeper, people’s primary concerns are not the taxes they’re paying but security in their homes. This is why PlanPutnam has been pushing Kevin Cahill’s Quality in Education Act for as long as memory serves. But in order for a shift of funding for education to go from property taxes to income taxes the well-to-do will have to pay more and as they virtually own the government we’ll not be seeing that until mobs of people start eating them, one fat family at a time.
In the meantime, very few people I know can buy influence like they can and NY’s essentially flat tax rates benefits the wealthy, so why would they ever want that to change?
You have to admit that 6.85% taken in state taxes from someone earning $35,000 a year is a lot more painful than the same rate being taken from someone earning $150,000 and more and that’s an inequality that must be addressed.
> the stock transfer tax. It was brought to Steve’s attention during the campaign and he has been looking into it. This tax had been in place until 1980 in which every transfer was taxed with a 25% surcharge. Since 1980 there is a zero surcharge. This is not a small issue and he will due his due diligence before making any decision. However I will argue that NY does not has a
If NYS stopped returning the $13 billion generated by the stock transfer tax we’d not be having the budget problems we are having. But again, the rich ruins things, contrary to the Assemblyman’s known-false statement that “unions” run the state, not the wealthy.
> problem of not charging enough in taxes, it has a serious problem with spending too much. Westchester’s Medicaide plan includes dental and vision care. Most middle class tax payers I know including myself cannot afford these for themselves yet we are paying through our taxes to provide it to others. That’s just not right. NY has become a state only affordable to the very rich and the poor. Middle class need not apply. We are in a serious crises that must be addressed if we are ever to climb
This is one reason why this nation, now more than ever, needs a national, single-payer health care system.
> out of it. Cutting around the edges will not save this state. Taxing the rich more will not save this state. Responsible government and fiscal policy is no longer a luxury.
Taxing the wealthy will resolve many of our problems and anyone can see that who wants to admit it. Anything else is delusional.
Jeff,
You asked where Dr. Katz got his information from regarding the population decrease in NY. There are many more sources but for starters:
http://www.empirecenter.org/pb/2009/10/empirestateexodus102709.cfm
“The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource—people. From 2000 to 2008, in both absolute and relative terms, New York experienced the nation’s largest loss of residents to other states—a net domestic migration outflow of over 1.5 million, or 8 percent of its population at the start of the decade.
Based on the latest data from the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), this report examines how many New Yorkers have been leaving the state, where they have been going and how much income they have been taking with them.
I spent a good chunk of time reading the article you posted yet what you’re doing is playing semantics with numbers.
Sure, 1.7 million (not 2 million) people have left the state for other states but those people have been replaced by others and the population of the state has grown. Curiously, the report seems to hint at a bias towards ‘white’ Americans by saying a) that the population gain has been made up of people who are foreign born and, b) that somehow this does not count. I’ll save that discussion for another time, and we will have it – as racism has no place in American politics expect for those who desire a fascist state.
Also, the report does not say *why* those 2 million people have moved elsewhere. It says in an offhand way in its conclusion that we should accept that high taxes is the cause but offers no proof.
At this moment my mother is landing at Hartsdale airport in Atlanta. She sold her house on Long Island has moved out of state. My neighbors across the street are selling their home and moving to North Carolina. Both they, and she, have opted to leave New York – because of the weather.
So, playing Politifact, I have to give Mr. Katz a not-so-true on his statement that 2 million have left NY state to lower tax states because of the taxes. Yes, 1.7 million have moved out of state, yes they’ve largely moved to states with lower taxes but there is no evidence they left *because* of our tax structure.
But if Mr. Katz is that concerned with the tax structure, perhaps he might float legislation that would NOT give Wall Street back the $13 billion in stock transfer taxes each year and in fact if we stopped that silly – feed the rich – process we could balance the state budget. Combine that with a genuine graduated income tax along the lines of the old Rockefeller years and we’d be rolling in dough, enough to offer genuine tax relief to people like me.
But I’m guessing that when all is said and done the rich in this state will be richer and the poor and working classes will continue to fund the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
The County Legislature has no desire to cut the budget, which means a loss of political jobs.
All anyone has to do is look at Nassau County to see where Putnam County is headed…
Thanks Jeff, your article was well written, and doesn’t leave much more to say in reference to the County Sales Tax. They just don’t get it. If there were no alternatives with extremely easy access, then they could force the extra tax on everyone. CT is a very short distance, so most people go there and do large shopping trips. Another extremely convenient alternative is to go to the Internet and have things delivered. A lot of merchandise doesn’t have a brick and mortar store, price comparison is very simple to get stuff cheaper, and it is simple to order things without having to pay sales tax at all. People trying to make ends meet, who have access to a computer don’t shop Putnam, and why should they. If the legislature wants to help local business, they should make the tax rate competitive with CT. Can you say UPS, FedEx, and USPS, shipping included? That’s where the money has gone, in addition to lost jobs, and the move to other counties.
Perhaps not, but they serve the immediate needs of the people who live here. Bog Box stores do not.
Putnam, nice rural county, but deli’s, pizzaria’s and nail salons don’t loom large on the tax rolls.
Ai-yi-yi….so many points, so little time.
NYS will (apparently) lose two Congressional seats as a result of the state’s population having decreased in comparison to the overall population of the US. It is not a result of a net loss in population, as the recently completed 2010 Census confirms. All claims to the contrary are completely bogus.
If sales taxes or commercial development were the answer to what ails us then Long Island would be generating a net surplus and property taxes would be lower there than anywhere in the state. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case as evidenced by the recent state takeover of Nassau County as well as two Long Island counties’ continued listing among the highest property taxes in the country.
And (finally) it is neither income taxes nor sales taxes nor property taxes that are at the heart of what is troubling the middle class, it’s wage and wealth stagnation. We’re a country that worships wealth and a lot of wealthy folks out there have become so by squeezing white collar workers – lower benefits, downsizing, outsourcing, automation, tech upgrades, etc. It has been a pretty steady decline since the early 80s (right about the time the majority started buying into the “trickle down theory”). The reality is that wealth has been “trickling up” for three decades. This disparity was somewhat masked by access to easy credit and leveraging home equity. All of that is gone now and the problems can no longer be covered up.
I know one thing for certain – it would be a very bad thing if all of the wealth in this country were in the hands of a small percentage of people. The only real question is at what point does the disparity cause problems. 5% of the population holding 90%? 2% holding 95%?
Anyway, all of the claims and counter-claims in this exchange are terribly interesting but what seems to be missing are solutions. Assuming that a lot of folks are, in fact, leaving the state due to high income taxes are you proposing lower income taxes? How, exactly, are you proposing to manage this in the face of the state’s budget deficits using current tax rates? What are you proposing to cut? (These questions are directed at Assemblyman Katz’s representative.)
Just curious….