The Editor's View

Thursday, April 3rd

Death by Mindless Bureaucracy

I recently went to a Post Office branch near my new home in Maryland to take out a post office box for the Empire Page. I was not allowed to do so, however, which begins to tell the tale of how close we are as a society to death by mindless bureaucracy.

The reason I couldn't take out the box was because I did not have Maryland identification. Now, of course, I thought the US Post Office was a national or federal (whichever is the proper term) agency and that one did not have to be a resident of a specific state to take out a post office box in that state. And while I am a legal resident of Maryland, I don't have a Maryland driver's license yet, which means, according to this person, that I can't take out a Maryland PO Box.

Rather than argue with the clerk, I sent the bookkeeper whom I had just hired and who is a Maryland resident to the Post Office to take out the box. She had to make two trips because the clerk wanted to see two proofs of identification and residence -- her driver's license alone not being sufficient.

On the second trip everything was fine until she went to pay. "No can do," said the clerk. "We don't accept out of state checks."

What pray tell does the fact that the bank a check is written on is not a Maryland bank have to do with paying for a Post Office box that is the property of the United States government and not the state of Maryland?

I wonder if a bank or fast food store that is opening a new branch in Maryland and wanted a PO Box on a check written from corporate headquarters in New York would get the same response? I doubt it.

All this I suppose is being done in the name of national security. Are we safer as a nation now that only people with forged identification can take out PO boxes and people running legitimate businesses are thwarted? You tell me.

This is not the only catch-22 situation I've experienced lately. Recently I received a form from the commissioner of jurors in Hamilton County where I have a summer home. The form asked me if I am a resident of Hamilton County. I am not nor have I ever been and I said so and mailed the form back.

Of course that was not good enough. I got the form back saying I need to prove that I am not a resident of Hamilton County: guilty unless proven innocent as it were.

Okay. What constitutes proof? Utility bills, phone bills, mortgage payment receipts and other such documents. But do those constitute proof or residence. Of course not! The fact that I own property in some other location and pay utility bills, etc. on such property has no bearing on where I legally reside. The fact that the commissioner of jurors will accept such evidence speaks volumes.

Now keep in mind that I would be happy to serve on a jury in Hamilton County were it not for the fact that I'm not a legal resident there. Wouldn't defense lawyers love to know that half the jurors on a panel have are not legally eligible to serve but were compelled to show up because they couldn't prove they weren't ineligible?

These two people are just doing their jobs you're probably thinking and you're right they are, but my question is what kind of world are we creating when people relish putting obstacles in front of willing customers and forcing us to play games in order to make them happy?

So now I'm sending my bookkeeper back to the Post Office with cash. Let's hope that they don't decide to stop accepting cash before she gets there.
Peter on 04.03.08 @ 14:25 PM EST [more..] [No Comments]

Saturday, January 19th

The Worst Company on Earth

AMD – the company that Capital District political leaders and economic developers have put their money on to lift the region to the ranks of Austin, Silicon Valley and North Carolina’s Research Triangle – was named the “Worst Company on Earth” Friday January 18 by Guy Adami, one of the expert traders on CNBC’s Fast Money. And if Adami is even close to being correct, what does that say about the decision of Andrew Cuomo to go to court on behalf of AMD accusing archrival Intel of “anticompetitive conduct”? While Cuomo is claiming that monopolistic practices, not better products at a lower cost is what has driven marketshare, Intel says denies any basis for the suit, arguing that it just mimics a still unresolved suit filed by AMD in 2005. As such, is it worth the risk to Cuomo’s reputation if he can’t make his case or does he believe merely filing the suit will be enough to help AMD?

Further what does Adami’s evaluation of AMD say about the judgment of those economic developers and state officials who bet heavily on AMD with taxpayer dollars? One might say that the Worst Company on Earth is just one man’s opinion, but it appears to be supported by the investment community which this year drove AMD’s stock under $7. While AMD is cutting its loses and its stock has risen from its lowest point, how much confidence can one have in a company that recently admitted overpaying when it spent $5.6 billion to purchase graphics chip maker ATI Technologies?

Senator Joe Bruno still wants us to believe that AMD will build that chip plant in Malta. But there’s just as good chance that it will never happen. The reason? Competition in the chip-making world is increasing with new entries trying to take market share away from market leaders. Is AMD nimble and smart enough to fight off those incursions? Not if you believe Adami. The worse thing that could happen to the Capital Region is for AMD to start on the plant and be unable to complete it. But when you’re backing the Worst Company on Earth that scenario also has to be considered.

Peter on 01.19.08 @ 10:49 AM EST [more..] [No Comments]

Tuesday, January 8th

Partisanship, Primaries and Political Parties

In a conference that took place at the University of Oklahoma earlier this week, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg joined Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and a number of other former elected officials in outlining guidelines for bi-partisanship. They believe a commitment to end partisan bickering by the current crop of presidential contenders would contribute to our government’s doing a better job of solving major policy issues.

At the same time the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries are characterized by non-partisanship, by which I mean that both allow voters who are registered independents to help choose the Democrats’ and Republicans’ presidential nominees. In fact, voters can cross party lines in both two states.

Is there a connection between the trend towards absolute fluidity in our political parties and the call for non-partisanship? I think there is.

Once upon a time political parties were much more closed. They chose candidates at conventions whose attendees were chosen by the party leadership which put up candidates for the party faithful to endorse. The image of brokered conventions is strong in our collective memory, although in fact there were several conventions that didn’t go according to plan.

The open primary system was seen as a democratic reform replacing tight party control and today states including California allow voters to cross party lines in primaries.

The end result is that enrollment in a political party means less today than it ever has. If one doesn’t have to be an enrolled party member to vote in a primary why bother? Unless you plan for running for office, there’s no benefit to doing so.

Weak parties span strong candidates

One of the consequences of the strong party system was that it often yielded candidates who were weak and lacked an independent means of support, both financial and political. Men who were acceptable to party leaders were men who could be controlled. Anyone with an independent standing in the community might go his own way and thus was not the preferred candidate.

The weakening of the party structure has resulted in the opposite – the candidates who win primaries are attractive, strong, independent and have support outside the party structure. And, if they win the general election they act independently and do not take orders from state committee chairmen.

Observers of Congress over the past two decades can site the consequences of the emergence of strong officials who do not need to bow to their political party on issues. These elected officials often stake out independent ground from which they continue to build their base – which sometimes becomes a platform for national office. John McCain is a good example. His independence on matters such as immigration and campaign finance flies in the face of Republican Party positions. Yet that very independence has made him attractive to voters – independents whether enrolled as such or not.

The problem with calling for bi-partisanship is that its rare that people change their behavior because someone tells them they ought to do it. It’s even rarer for someone to change when it’s against his best interest to do so. Further the bi-partisan agenda is seen by some as a stalking horse for Mike Bloomberg to run for president as an independent. If Bloomberg perceives that enough Americans are fed up with “partisanship,” he might run as a bi-partisan unity candidate.

Of course, all this posturing gets thrown out the window when the election is over. By necessity the rules of Congress require the majority party to vote in certain officers who allocate seats on committees, schedule hearings and votes, etc. etc. A bi-partisan president would have to lead the country without even being able to count on the presumed support of his own party. Every issue would require building coalitions and support and would most likely result in even more gridlock than we have today.

Some people, myself included, would like to see political parties take back a measure of power. If choosing candidates was restricted to people enrolled in that party, then candidates would be both more beholden to their party leadership back home and more likely to toe the party line on issues, and that believe it or not would likely result in less gridlock.

With less incentive to stake out independent territory and more reason to seek support within one’s party, issues would be more likely to get resolved. Fewer cooks result not only in a better meal I’ve found, but also in less clean up work in the kitchen.

Peter on 01.08.08 @ 07:51 PM EST [more..] [No Comments]

Tuesday, November 6th

Tax Reform Again

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has proposed an interesting tax reform package that is not getting a lot of support from either party or from either party's presidential candidates. The question is why not?

Rangel’s proposal (10-page PDF), which gets at a number of problems, including the alternative minimum tax, is designed to be revenue-neutral. To accomplish that goal he would balance reductions for middle and lower class taxpayers by collecting more money from hedge fund managers who have been using offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share as well as private equity and hedge fund managers who have been avoiding paying the rates the rest of us pay.

If you haven’t had to pay the alternative minimum tax yet, don’t feel smug. This year another 21 million middle class taxpayers will join those of us who are already members of this unfortunate club. Created decades ago to prevent rich people with getting away without paying any taxes, the drafters of this measure failed to account for inflation and as a result today the AMT brings in so much money that Congress can’t bring itself to shut off the spigot.

I like Rangel’s plan and suggest that both Republicans and Democrats can find something in it for each of them. Democrats should like it because it will lower taxes for middle class people, many of whom are suspicious that Democrats have not shed their “tax and spend” mentality. Republicans should like it because they really don’t want to be seen as defending taxing multi-millionaires at half the rate of many two-wage earner families.

Why then does it seem that logical, common sense proposals that deal with taxes don’t have much of a chance? If you want to understand the problem consider the following proverbial iceberg protrusion.

You may have read about the case of Concurrent Technologies, an organization that emerged out of a university-government grant proposal in 1988 and has grown into a $250 million a year operation whose chief executives are paid just under a half a million dollars each and which contributes tens of thousands of dollars to the campaign committees of key members of Congress who in turn make sure that Concurrent keeps getting more and more “grants”.

Having founded and managed a company with several moving parts, I know how hard it is to stay focused and do a few things well. Concurrent, however, excels in doing anything and everything that they can get government funding to do. A few examples include software engineering, environmental and security consulting, training mine-detecting dogs, organize conferences, conduct missile defense and hydrogen fuel research and develop special armor for military combat vehicles.

Quite a company…except that Concurrent is not a company. It’s a not-for-profit charitable organization approved by the IRS as such because according to the Washington Post it “lessens the burden on governance” and helps “the federal government and American industry to perform more effectively through the use of emerging technologies.” Mention that argument when the IRS tells you that you owe penalties because you forgot to list the $100 you won at poker last year and see what it gets you.

The five members of Congress who do Concurrent’s bidding – making sure it gets earmark (non-competitive) funding – include 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats.

That my friends in a nutshell is why tax reform is not very popular in the nation’s capital. Our congressmen and women are having too much fun collecting campaign contributions while finding ways to subvert the nation’s ideals of competition and equal opportunity for the Concurrent Technologies of the world.

Understand that I am not commenting on the specific projects that Concurrent was funded to undertake. Some were probably worthwhile. The problem starts with the fact that the federal government has so much money to spend that millions of dollars are many agencies' rounding errors. Further post 9/11 Congress and the federal bureaucracy is more likely than not to dispense with the rules that are supposed to govern the awarding of such monies. As a result the taxpayer in many cases no doubt overpays for inferior results...that is when we even get results.

Thus you can expect hedge fund managers to continue paying 15% on their earnings next year while 21 million more middle class taxpayers will be writing quarterly checks to the IRS. And something will pass Congress in a year or two that will be called tax reform, but we’ll know different, won't we!

Peter on 11.06.07 @ 09:38 PM EST [more..] [No Comments]

Monday, September 24th

Why Columbia and 60 Minutes Were Wrong

While Columbia University has received the bulk of the criticism, 60 Minutes acted no differently by interviewing Iran’s “President” Ahmadinejad. Both were wrong to do so.

There are those -- including the administration at Columbia -- who argue that it is appropriate for an academic institution to expose students to varying viewpoints – even those whose views are deemed offensive, and 60 Minutes can argue that it was doing its duty as a journalistic enterprise in obtaining information so that members of its audience can make up their minds.

Some people might even hold out hope that Ahmadinejad might modify his views if challenged with hard questions and facts that contradict his stated positions.

Let me first say that I would not go so far as to boycott 60 Minutes or call for a boycott of their advertisers for doing the interview. Nor would I go any further in protesting Columbia University’s decision than to try to convince them that they were wrong. That is because both organizations play by a set of rules that I adhere to. For each, the possibility exists of having a constructive dialogue where one or both opposing parties can learn from their opponents and might even change their views. That is not the case for Mr. Ahmadinejad and thus we come to the reason for my opposition to giving him a platform.

Ahmadinejad’s views are calculated. They are not the result of learning (take note Columbia), of the study of information and drawing conclusions based on rules of logic or science. You can’t change someone’s views when they’ve chosen to think a certain way about a topic in order to achieve a political objective.

I heard one local commentator continually call Ahmadinejad ‘crazy’ for stating that the Holocaust – the murder by the Nazis and their allies of six million Jews and others – never happened. The man is clearly not crazy in the sense that you might call someone crazy who claims to hear voices that tell him to kill the president. Ahmadinejad’s views are designed to appeal to an audience that wants to believe Israel is illegitimate and should be destroyed. You can’t change his views on the subject by producing factual evidence because he’s chosen to believe the way he does for personal gain. You have as much chance doing so as you would have of convincing Barry Bonds to give up the home run record because he once used steroids.

Further Ahmadinejad is not just another contestant in the game of statesmanship. He’s a sworn enemy of the United States who would rally the Muslim world to carry out jihads until Islam has achieved world domination. Remind you of someone else?

Comparing people to Adolph Hitler is in most cases a sign that the person has run out of logical arguments and that he hopes to win the debate by emotion. In this case, however, there’s an important real basis for the comparison. Ahmadinejad, like Hitler, would exploit democratic institutions in order to advance his anti-democratic agenda. If the West is willing to allow him to speak on their media (60 Minutes) and be on the stage of one of their institutions of higher learning, Ahmadinejad is only too happy to take advantage of the situation to show his supporters at home how powerful he truly is.

Recall that after Hitler took advantage of Germany’s electoral system to gain win the presidency in 1933, he quickly abolished those institutions that might have led to his removal from office, justifying the abolition of democratic institutions by blaming Germany’s Jews for its defeat in World War I.

Ahmadinejad is using his position as president of Iran to exert control over Iran’s government bureaucracy, through his control over the budget and by placing his people in key positions. He is also using the Revolutionary Guard – the group that took over the US Embassy in 1979 – the way Hitler used his followers – to create a climate where the young can be indoctrinated and where people are afraid to oppose him.

In a case where appearance wins out over substance, Ahmadinejad got what he wanted from his appearances on 60 Minutes and at Columbia. Those who invited him did not; worse they were used by someone who would never permit them the same opportunity were the situations reversed.

Peter on 09.24.07 @ 08:47 PM EST [more..]

Thursday, May 3rd

Commissions, Hospitals and Education

I never thought I’d live to see Stan Lundine’s name again in print. The former Congressman from Western New York who Mario Cuomo tabbed in 1986 to serve as lieutenant governor and whose career went downhill as a result, was chosen by Governor Spitzer to head a commission whose mission is to reduce the number of taxing jurisdictions in New York State.

While I’m happy to see the governor recognize that New York is being strangled by the vestiges of an antiquated governmental octopus, I am concerned that Lundine may not provide the leadership needed to combat those who are happy with the status quo – including the major political parties.

The success of the commission will depend in large part on Mr. Lundine’s leadership style. If he is passive and accommodating, then excuses will be found to do very little and to do it slowly. On the other hand there may be a ray of hope if he recognizes that it is critical to act now in order to give New York in general and upstate New York in particular a chance to avoid going down in the history books as America’s 21st century version of Appalachia.

This could be your legacy Stan. Give it all you’ve got.

*

Has anyone wondered if there’s a connection between the crisis facing hospitals in this country and the continued existence of a separate government-run system of VA hospitals? The VA system was leaking oil long before the Iraq conflict, resulting in many veterans receiving second class treatment in poorly run, deteriorating institutions. Iraq has brought that system to its knees as evidenced by the recent scandal at Walter Reed.

Non-VA hospitals are also in crisis due to changes in medical technology which has resulted in shorter stays and alternatives to hospital care. Instead of accepting the need to change, however, many of these institutions are fighting to hang onto their 20th century way of life. The solution? Vouchers for veterans. Let veterans chose where they go for medical treatment. This should result in competition to provide attract veterans’ dollars, giving VA hospitals a reason to shape up and non-VA hospitals an opportunity to serve a new patient community. If it turns out that veterans prefer going to non-VA hospitals, as I believe many will, then the VA can start closing institutions. Separate but equal was deemed unconstitutional when it came to education. Why should it be any different when providing health care to the men and women who risk life and limb in our armed forces?

P.S.: Some will defend the VA system by pointing out that it has expertise in treatment war-related injuries. But it doesn’t follow that the VA system has to be in the healthcare delivery business. It can continue to develop specialized treatments that can be exported to non-VA hospitals in a fashion that allows the system to re-coup the cost of developing those treatment modalities.

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It’s a sad day when special needs children are being treated in negative ways in the name of treating all people alike, but that is what is happening in many of our schools.

Back in my day, special education kids were kept away from ‘normal’ children. No wonder many of us displayed a lack of compassion whenever we encountered those children.

The mainstreaming movement was motivated by a belief that separating children was not good for either group. However, in the name of equal treatment special education children are getting millions of dollars worth of services that they cannot benefit from as well as patronizing behavior from teachers, aides and administrators.

What does that mean on a day-to-day basis? It often means that there’s no expectation that these children pay attention, work on school related activities or even wash their hands when they come in from the playground for lunch. Putting such demands on these children may be met with resistance or failure. Thus, many teachers and aides compensate for the bad break the children have suffered by not expecting or teaching them to behave ‘normally’ or achieve academically.

Worse are the misallocation of expensive services driven by parents who have now started suing schools if their children do not receive the most outlandish devises and benefits. (See “A Costly Education,” Forbes, April 9, 2007.) Some parents find they can avoid having to work for a living by constantly advocating for more government benefits.

As a final blow to these children there is almost no supervision of teachers in special education. Administrators for our most school systems have no idea what these children are or are not capable of achieving. They therefore place little or no demands on the teachers. An annual review might consist of sitting in on a class for a few minutes and making sure the paperwork is filled out properly.

Computers and other advances in medicine and technology offer hope that children who in the past might have languished can today hope to lead productive and semi-independent lives. But without educational leadership another generation is likely to be lost to an educational system that pretends to be committed to leaving no child behind and to parents who measure educational quality by the amount of money the government can be forced to spend on their children.

Peter on 05.03.07 @ 05:20 PM EST [more..]

Friday, April 6th

What's More Important -- Process or Substance?

I received an email the other day from Governor Spitzer touting the results of his negotiations with the state legislature, evidence of which were editorials in the New York Times and New York Daily News. Governor: Those editorials were in the minority. More typical were those in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (“Reform was MIA” Tuesday, April 3) and the Syracuse Post-Standard “Politics as Usual” also April 3).

The fact is that this year’s budget disappointed a lot of people for two reasons – the amount of spending and the process. The promised reform of the process was absent and the governor had to give in on a number of fronts in order to get the budget done on time.

What role the time pressure played in forcing the governor’s hand only he and his top advisors know for certain. However, it is very likely that this factor was significant. They had very little time to put the new budget in place and didn’t want to risk the political fallout that could have resulted if the budget came in late.

That fact gives rise to hope that next year’s budget will be closer to what the citizens of New York both want and deserve.

Many commentators focused on the process. No, it was not as open as we were led to believe it would be. However, I’m not certain negotiations can ever occur in public. Deals are necessary to put together a budget and deals can only be made when you are able to exclude certain parties.

I would argue that the substance of any budget is more important than the process by which it is created. In his email the governor claims that the results are what he promised.

If that’s the case, then I suggest he and his people look again. The state budgets in the past couple of years have been doable for one main reason – Wall Street. With the national economy on solid footing and the stock market on the rise, New York has been able to operate with a short-term mentality. However, many believe there are serious underlying problems that will crop up as major obstacles to political peace when the national economy softens. And, if New York continues to lag the rest of the country, that day of reckoning may be right around the corner.

Hopefully the governor will spend the remainder of 2007 on the road meeting with the public on street corners and in their homes. If he listens to enough people, he’ll find out how fragile New York’s political economy truly is. He’ll learn that the majority of bright young people are not staying in New York AND that many of their parents do not plan to stick around either.

Why should baby-boomers with money in the bank at retirement age continue to live in a state with high property taxes, high state income taxes and a high cost of living?

While the focus this year was on Medicaid and aid to education – and I have little doubt the pressure to keep spending more in those areas will continue unabated, those are only be the tip of the iceberg. Underneath are the future costs of public sector pensions and a deteriorating infrastructure that may require billions of dollars to address future needs for electric power production and transmission, for safe bridges and highways, for public safety and for higher education, where capital investment is critical to be able to compete in the increasingly world-wide knowledge market.

While solutions may be hard to come by, the governor will need to win the people over to his side in order to get the “tax and spend” Senate Republicans and the “tax and spend” Assembly Democrats to go along with any significant reforms. Unless he starts that campaign very soon, the combination of a soft national economy coupled with the legacy of past state budgets may limit his options…and that could result in Mr. Spitzer’s ending up as a one-term governor.

Peter on 04.06.07 @ 04:18 PM EST [more..]

Tuesday, March 27th

Government Consolidation: A Concept Whose Time Has Come

The consolidation movement in New York is about two decades old and has little to show for itself. Despite a rash of studies, reports and committees in the 1980s, little happened as parochial interests prevailed. Today, however, a more pragmatic attitude exists and the drive towards consolidation is not coming from academics and people at the top of the ladder. Rather, it’s percolating up from the bottom.

In recent village elections surprisingly the word consolidation or dissolution was on the lips of more than one candidate. Whether we’ll see positive results this time around remains to be seen. However, we should understand why this is taking place and suggest some guidelines for success.

The structure of local government in New York hasn’t changed much in the past 300 years. The existence of villages, towns, cities and counties represents a time long before mass transportation and the Internet. As a result, the boundaries of many of these jurisdictions no longer meet any rational criteria. Some ought to dissolve; others ought to be consolidated into larger districts.

Government boundaries should exist for reasons other than history. Jurisdictions should exist where public policy can impact on issues affecting those who reside without their boundaries and where residents can select representatives of their interests on policymaking bodies. When the boundaries are artificial, needs cannot be adequately addressed and that often leads to the politics of personality.

To give concrete examples of how New Yorkers suffer today because of political entities that no longer serve a rational purpose, here are a few:

∑ Local posts are often filled by people whose loyalty is to those who appointed them rather than professional principles of fairness, equity and honesty. That’s why we see so much local corruption, cronyism, nepotism and waste.
∑ Conflict between local jurisdictions is rampant and lacks solutions. We’ve seen this with local development agencies competing with each other to bring business to their political communities when in fact they represent the same economic community. Talk of merging IDAs should be supported.
∑ Waste. When you have too many small government agencies, waste becomes a way of life. Every police department needs dispatchers – even when the agency is too small to keep that person busy; every school bus department needs scheduling – even if they can’t afford the latest technology to schedule routes efficiently; every department needs its own computers, copiers and offices even if these are only used sporadically.

High taxes, politically-motivated and unskilled people doing jobs where skilled people are needed, cronyism, nepotism, theft of services, lack of oversight: those are the prices New Yorkers pay daily for its current structure of local government.

Is consolidation the answer? Only if it’s done properly; only if it results in more efficient delivery of services by professional employees (i.e., people who are trained, have proper tools and are properly supervised).

State government can impact whether the current whisper of consolidation becomes a force for change. Financial incentives should be awarded to communities that consolidate jurisdictions or agencies within jurisdictions.

The state should also provide the assistance of professional managers to localities wishing to consolidate local villages, towns and even counties. Cities, such as Schenectady, which are struggling financially, should be offered incentives to merge into their county governments. Al Jurczynski’s suggestion when he became mayor of Schenectady that he should preside over its dissolution was 100% correct.

Consolidation has been opposed as a loss of democracy. That should be considered a code word for ‘don’t take away my little fiefdom.’ Representative government organized around rational boundaries is more democratic than government organized around historic and no longer logical boundaries. When you have legislative bodies that represent logical boundaries at least there is a chance to address real needs. Today we have legislative bodies that often can only obstruct needed progress. It’s time.

Peter on 03.27.07 @ 04:35 PM EST [more..]

Tuesday, February 13th

When is a reform a reform and other musings

It’s been a fun winter here in Albany thus far, watching the new administration confront the reality of a government system that all agree is in need of reform. But when is “reform” not needed? You might say that reform takes place continuously because whenever the balance of power shifts, those whose power has increased make changes to secure their position and those who are suddenly out of power start campaigning for reforms that can get them back to where they were.

Too often the wrong things are reformed in the process. Superficial changes are made when fundamental ones are needed or the new procedure/system is worse than the old one, except of course from the point of view of those who now benefit.

Without a set of principles from which one can judge reform, what we end up with is change for change’s sake. So what criteria should we use to evaluate what’s taking place in Albany today?

1. A primary consideration in the 21st century has to be transparency. Prior to the Internet era, the cost of true transparency was high. Today it is cheap and even more necessary than ever.
2. Along with transparency, change must result in more accountability. For too long elected officials could say one thing and do the opposite without their constituents having a clue. We still have a long way to go however in holding our elected officials accountable for their actions and inactions.
3. Finally, reform must result in more equity than before. Equity can be provided in terms of opportunity or outcomes. Change is good if it means more people are eligible for or actually receive a benefit.

Now, let’s consider what reforms could occur that would yield the above results. I’ll suggest one such reform, but would like to hear what reforms you think are needed and why. Send suggestions to me at epeditor@emprirepage.com.

Here’s my reform: Reduce the power of the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Majority leader. To create more equity, accountability and transparency, the authority vested in those positions has to be dramatically dispersed to the members. That reform would alleviate the need for a lot of the superficial changes recommended by the so-called good government organizations, which in many cases would only add to the bureaucratic inefficiencies and cost of running our government.

*

Each year dozens – well probably hundreds – of bills are introduced in the NYS Legislature that are truly stupid. We need a name for these. I’ll give you my most ridiculous bill of the week and you can help me find a name for this category. I’ll also accept nominations for bills to highlight in future blogs.

The winner this week is Queens State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky who wants to make “driving while drowsy” a crime. This is an example of if there’s a bad way to solve a problem there’s always someone ready to put it into law.

Let me ask Senator Stavisky if she’s also ready to criminalize the following actions: driving while eating or drinking, driving while talking, and driving while thinking? Probably not, but I’ll bet more accidents occur because people are not paying attention than due to drowsiness.

But then again maybe some engineer can come up with a test for drowiness that the police can administer when they pull you over. "Here's a pillow. I'm going to time how long it takes for your head to hit it. That will give us your drowiness quotient." "Whatever you say officer."

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Best recent editorial: “Change in state Senate” February 11 by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. The editorial argues persuasively in my opinion that a Democratic Party takeover of the state Senate would be bad for upstate. Do you agree? Here's the link.

Peter on 02.13.07 @ 02:13 PM EST [more..]

Thursday, February 1st

The Governor's First Month

Eliot Spitzer has just completed his first month in office. It may turn out to have been the most important month of his four-year term, having set the tone for the kind of leader he will be.

Starting off with a feel-good inauguration ceremony and then laying out his agenda in the State of the State, Governor Spitzer created an air of expectation as he targeted the issues that had earned him a landslide victory in November – more aid to education, reducing local government Medicaid costs, property tax relief, economic development Upstate, etc.

How all that was going to be accomplished without a tax hike was finally answered this week when the Governor submitted a $120 billion budget to the Legislature. This is perhaps the most anticipated budget in New York history and it will be subject to line-by-line scrutiny in the weeks ahead.

Early results suggest that each of the Governor’s major proposals will face opposition, a fact he tried to deflect by characterizing the enemies of reform as “the special interests”.

A major question yet to be answered is how the Governor will go about negotiating with the Legislature: will he try to steamroll them, insisting they accept the budget as he crafted it, or will he allow individual pieces to be negotiated separately and thus risk having the whole thing fall apart? Given that the Governor will inevitably be judged on whether the state has an on-time budget, the Legislature holds an April 1 trump card that may force Spitzer into giving up or modifying some of his headline items.

One program that deserves to be modified is his version of the so-called taxpayer relief or STAR program. I agree with E.J. McMahon, policy analyst with the Empire Center, who says, “Spitzer's property tax relief proposal simply builds on the shortcomings of the existing, Pataki-initiated STAR program. The new governor makes STAR even worse,” McMahon says, “with a ‘means-testing’ formula that will add to the program's administrative complexity and make plenty of homeowners unhappy, especially downstate.”

Instead of learning from Massachusetts, which has successfully brought about taxpayer relief by capping local government spending, or New Jersey, which just now agreed to a cap on school tax levies, Governor Spitzer’s proposal will allow local school boards to mortgage the future with more spending and higher school taxes that will inevitably require an even bigger state contribution down the road.

Instead of Star this should be called the Shell Program since tax payer relief at the property level is being paid for by high state income taxes and escalating fees on everything from getting a driver’s license to camping at a state campground.

Early on, the bloom went off the rose between the new governor and the state legislature over the procedure to replace Alan Hevesi as state comptroller. The confrontation between Spitzer, who backed a procedure that resulted in three names being submitted to the legislature, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who clearly wanted a Democratic member of his house to be among those recommended by the panel, has yet to be resolved. Some people have asked whether the Governor needed this confrontation so early in his administration.

That conflict, as well as a well-reported dressing down of a legislative leader by the Governor, raise an important issue. There’s a gap that is as wide as Niagara Falls between getting elected and governing. The voters may love him, but if the Governor cannot find a way to work with the Legislature and with the constituencies whose interests are threatened by his reforms, we may be in for fierce battles and a lot less pleasing results than the public expects. Stay tuned.

Best media coverage of the governor’s budget message: The Binghamton Sun & Press-Bulletin. In addition to running several stories from Gannett’s Albany bureau, the Sun & Press-Bulletin assigned their own reporters to focus on how education and health care reforms will impact their community.

Best editorial on the budget: Poughkeepsie Journal. Unlike some editorial boards who were afraid to say anything critical about the budget, the Journal correctly pointed out that the new budget will add to New York’s already high debt load and that’s before the Legislative leaders start to push their favorite programs.

Given that Wall Street fueled tax revenues will fill the state’s coffers this spring it is a shame the governor couldn’t have crafted a budget that reduced instead of increased state debt. If the economy slows, next year’s budget battle may make 2007’s look like a lovefest.

Peter on 02.01.07 @ 03:13 PM EST [more..]

Wednesday, January 10th

Reforming New York’s Property Tax System: A Report on the January 10 Conference sponsored by the Center for Governmental Research, the Fiscal Policy Institute and the Empire Center of NYS Policy

Everyone agrees. New York’s property tax system is inequitable, inefficient and things are getting worse. If everyone agrees, then why can’t it be fixed? The answer to that question became a lot clearer to me after attending a half-day conference on the property tax mess and listening to several well-informed policy experts.

Here’s a short list of what’s wrong:

1. New York has more than 1,000 jurisdictions that place value on real property for tax purposes (assessment). As a result inequity is inevitable and the cost of maintaining the current assessment system at both the local and state levels is out of proportion to what other states pay.
2. While local government is raising property taxes, some people blame state policies rather than prolifigate local officials, while others blame a system that allows increases without sufficient controls.
3. The Star Program, the state’s ten-year old effort to provide property tax relief, has only succeeded in increasing the rate of local spending since the Legislature refused to go along with Gov. Pataki’s original idea of capping annual school tax increases.
4. The Star Program, revenue-sharing, Medicaid and other policies that impact the cost of local government contribute to distorting the property tax system, resulting for example in increasing the gap between wealthier school and poorer school districts.
5. Boundary wars, including upstate versus downstate, urban versus rural, and school districts versus the rest of local government, flare up whenever anyone tries to come up with solutions.

Let’s review the consequences of having a property tax system that is outmoded, expensive and unfair:

1. The system breeds corruption, encouraging local assessors for example to act like emperors and some jurisdictions to hire experts to help them get a leg up over neighboring villages, towns, cities or counties.
2. New Yorkers pay billions of dollars in taxes above what they might be paying, diverting monies that could be used by taxpayers to finance business growth, improve their properties and donate to charities.
3. New York is holding the tide against a drain of businesses and middle class people who can live cheaper and do better simply by moving to another state. Even our neighbors in what used to be called Tax-a-chusetts are in better shape since passing Prop 2&1/2 several years ago.

When something like New York’s property tax system persists in the face of logic, someone must be benefiting. Who benefits?

1. Those who can game the system to benefit themselves personally, their political party apparatus (through patronage jobs) or their businesses – starting with the NYS Legislature. A fair, equitable, impartial system would result in a huge loss of power to the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Majority Leader.
2. Thousands of people who hold or rely on local government jobs that would disappear. These people get salaries, benefits and a pension system doing jobs that a rational system would eliminate.

Is solving New York’s property tax problems that complicated? Yes and no. Here are a few steps in the right direction that should be relatively easy to pass and implement, were it not of course, for the fact that the Legislature would be giving up some of its power base in the process:

1. Only invest counties and cities with populations above 100,000 with the authority to conduct assessments.
2. Establish full value assessment as the standard for all jurisdictions.
3. Require re-assessments every five years. Today some jurisdictions have locked in assessed values set before World War II.
4. Reform that Star Program to impose a cap on school district spending increases with provisions for enrollment increases and capital spent on new buildings.

Other partial reforms were suggested during the session that are worthy of consideration. Contact Erika Rosenberg at the Center for Governmental Growth (www.cgr.org). She may have copies of the presentations or at least can provide contact information to the speakers.

The Best Solution?

The governor should take the same approach to property tax reform as was taken for health care institutions -- namely, set up a commission made up of experts (with no more than 10% being elected officials) with their recommendations becoming law 30 days after they are submitted. Certain benchmarks would have to be built into the enabling legislation, including imposing ceilings on annual property tax increases and reforming the assessment system.

Peter on 01.10.07 @ 02:39 PM EST [more..]

Sunday, December 31st

Intro to The Editor's View

Welcome to The Editor's View, the place where subscribers and visitors to The Empire Page can learn what's happening on the website.

In addition to news, you'll also have a chance to see answers to RAQs -- recently asked questions, and learn the editor's view on some topics.

Since The Empire Page is a non-partisan website, I'll confine my to issues about which I think I can add a needed perspective. Often, I'll point out where you can get useful information or read someone else's take on an issue I think is important to NYS or the nation.

In any case, feel free to make suggestions, ask questions or just tell me how you like our website.
Peter on 12.31.06 @ 02:56 PM EST [more..]

Wednesday, November 16th

Welcome

Welcome to the Editor's View BLog !!
Peter on 11.16.05 @ 07:47 PM EST [more..]