So the die is cast and the people have spoken and Nancy Pelosi is gloating and Bush is probably furiously at work a speech that will contain phrases like “bipartisan cooperation.”
But that’s the way the pendulum swings.
With or without some horrible thing going on in the White House, after dancing with one party for a few years, the populace chooses to switch partners. And that’s the way it’s been since the ink on the Constitution was still wet.
But New Yorkers seem to like their dance partners very, very much. My congressman, Maurice Hinchey, ran unopposed. Our junior senator probably could have saved her entire reelection fund for her 2008 presidential campaign. And still, we’re bleeding jobs and taxes are so high that people can’t afford to retire here, let alone continue to live here, yet we keep electing the same people at each opportunity, hoping somehow for different results.
And if I remember correctly, isn’t that the definition of insanity?
Cuomo didn’t fix us, so we fired him. Then we thought Pataki would do the job. Not so much. I don’t expect Mrs. Clinton will be much help. New York already adores her, so she doesn’t need to do us any favors. Now Eliot Spitzer will be in the Governor’s office, and he promises not to raise taxes (although pols have this sneaky way of calling them “fees” or “reassessments” or “appropriations” or somesuch so they can claim they haven’t raised “taxes,” therefore keeping their campaign promises). Oh, right. Jobs. He promises jobs. And not just any old jobs, either. But good ones. Ones that will actually allow people to move out of their parents’ basements or afford to go to the doctor.
Frankly I have no clue how anyone is going to salvage New York without raising taxes, but perhaps I’m just not that smart. Maybe they’ll kick more people off welfare or build a few more Starbucks and Applebee’s. Yeah. That’s what we need. More minimum-wage jobs. Employers tell me they can’t even find enough people who want to work at low-paying retail jobs and now we’re going to create more opportunities for people to blow off their interviews. No wonder customer service is going downhill around here. Not too many people who think their job sucks are going to go the extra mile to get you the item that you can’t instantly find on the shelf.
I know, there are some very hard-working people around here, and I appreciate them and thank them whenever I happen to run across one, but more and more, they are in the minority.
As are New Yorkers who don’t consider themselves true-blue, down-the-line Democrats. Perhaps we should unionize, lest we become like the endangered Liberal of the Reagan years.
The first meeting will be held in my car.
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8 comments:
I nominate my spot under the bridge for our secodn meeting. I found some edible Cheetos that someone just threw away yesterday for a snack serving for the inaugural. All we need now is a drink option.
I'll pick up a six of Colt 45. Should be more than enough.
Closing corporate tax loopholes, steeply raising income taxes on the vastly wealthy, legalizing and taxing certain currently illegal vices... these are all ways for the government to legitimately and morally raise more revenue that will not involve either (a) raising the income tax rate on the average citizen or (b) causing an increase in the general overall sales taxes that the average citizen pays.
Which is generally what most people mean when they request 'no new taxes'.
Obviously, legalizing recreational drugs, prostitution, and gambling (the three biggies) have their attendant problems, but, well, you do all that, you can pretty much at the very least eliminate the state income tax. (Florida has no state income tax and they haven't legalized any of these, however, New York hasn't got Florida's climate or beaches, either.)
Obviously, however, within our cultural context, no one can get elected on any such platform... not even a 'close corporate tax loopholes' platform will fly, because if the candidate in question really means it, the corporations will make sure his opponent wins the election.
With enough tax revenue, however, all things are possible... New York could readily attract very good jobs, if they'd simply promise huge rebates on all sorts of local tax rates to the companies in question. But the money to run the government has to come from somewhere. If your so called civilization refuses to tax weed, crank, hookers, and casinos, while at the same time giving huge tax breaks to all the billionaires out there and letting all the corporations hide money by the lunar craterful overseas, well, the only thing you have left to tax is your citizenry and your local companies.
So, people -- human and corporate -- move out of state.
One codicil I have to all this -- if one is going to legalize recreational drugs, prostitution, and gambling, one should do it with a 'no public advertising' codicil. I've driven through Nashville; there's something very ugly and intrusive, and coarse and unpleasant (to me, at least) about the incessant casino billboards. Throw in big public ads for cathouses and the local Wal-mart brands of dope and I'm just not going to want to live on this planet any more.
Sadly, though, morality is relative.
Personally I'm all for legalizing recreational drugs and prostitution. Hey, it's going to happen anyway, might as well keep it clean and get some tax revenue out of it.
But I agree. No billboards.
How would you get to 'objective morality'? Wouldn't that involve, I don't know, The Voice of God Itself, or something?
Oh...you were being ironic when you said that the above in your comment were ways the government could legally and morally raise more revenue...sorry, I'm a little slow these days...
No, no. No irony. I'm sorry. I genuinely misunderstood. I thought you'd have remembered that my morality IS objective. I am the Voice of God.
Now send me money.
Yeah. I'll get right on that. ;)
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