The Working File

Today’s New York Post was just depressing on pension and tax issues.   First, in  YOU HURT, THEY PROSPER, an editorial predicted a massive tax hike to hit the state:
“Is it fair to ask the people who make more to pay a little bit more in this time of crisis?” he wondered last week, arguing for [...]

Mayor Bloomberg has an opinion article in today’s Daily News offering a rather weak reform of NYC public employee pensions:
Pensions. New York City offers full retirement benefits after only 20 years of service for uniformed workers. In this day and age, with people living longer, taxpayers cannot afford to continue hiring workers who will be [...]

In my entry on the MTA and labor costs, I stated that I feared that New York would become too much like New Orleans and Detroit — once thriving cities that choked their productive class out of existence, left with taxeaters and — at least in New Orleans, a concentrated professional class and tourist section. [...]

Last week the Metropolitan Transit Authority decided to punt its obligations, and agreed to refer its new labor negotiations to an arbitration panel.  With skyrocketing deficits and the promise of higher fares, higher taxes, and even a new tax on payrolls, they made no effort to confront the union over wages, work rules, or pensions.  [...]

This is just about right, but doesn’t go far enough. Lawhawk points out that the so-called austerity budget proposed by Governor Patterson actually increases spending over the previous year. Lawhawk also notes that if Patterson had simply proposed the same budget used 2 year ago, he would have saved $7 billion. I [...]