New Fiscal Policy Institute "One New York" report has much to offer...

Recall Monday's front-page PoJo article on the new Fiscal Policy Institute report below; note as well-- our County Legislature will be once again voting soon on boundary amendments to Empire Zones in our county (see point #3 below)...

On that note-- this paragraph from the "Make Smart and Strategic Investments" section of FPI's new "One New York" report:

"New York State, its local governments and its public authorities spend three to four billion dollars annually in the name of economic development. But these resources are not used well, with officials throwing taxpayer dollars at companies in the hope that jobs will be created or retained. The same scrutiny being brought to bear on education and on safety net spending such as Medicaid needs to be applied to economic development spending (and all spending for that matter) as well. New York simply can't afford to have any economic development program run amok such as reported recently by the Syracuse Post-Standard. The Syracuse paper documented how under the state's Empire Zones program, over $500 million a year is going to firms that simply reincorporated or reorganized in order to claim their workers were "new" employees."

[see:http://www.syracuse.com/specialreports/poststandard/index.ssf?/specialreports/empirezone.html; also http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Taxpayer !]

It's all at http://www.FiscalPolicy.org ...

The new Fiscal Policy Institute report "One New York: An Agenda for Shared Prosperity" has many excellent suggestions and is a veritable treasure trove of much-ignored facts and information about our state's tax system...

These twelve common-sense ideas below stand out in particular as ones worthy for Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Silver, and Mr. Bruno to pursue:[Saland, Miller, Molinaro, Kirwan, Leibell, and Ball held responsible for these below as well; Cahill already ahead of the curve on much of this]

1. Statewide pension fund open to all working New Yorkers. (p. 46)
2. Restructure HCRA funding so as not to punish companies paying for health care. (p. 13)
3. Reform Empire Zones program to end rampant abuses. (p. 16)
4. Gradually (over the next few years) raise NY's minimum wage to level it was in 1970 (accounting for inflation)-- $8.47 an hour. (p. 37)
5. Make sure the state's Department of Labor investigates industries for labor law infractions. (p. 37)
6. Paid family leave to care for new child or sick family member (similar to California). (p. 49)
7. Pre-kindergarten available to all three-year-olds and four-year-olds. (p. 48)
8. Child care for families up to 275% of federal poverty level. (p. 47)
9. Restore Child Care Professional Retention Program. (p. 48)
10. Reform unemployment insurance to be a real safety net. (p.37)
11. Reform worker's compensation to be a real safety net. (p. 14)
12. Reform Housing Finance Agency away from influence of developers' donations. (p.44)

Note-- the first one listed above (for a statewide pension fund open to all New Yorkers) seems like a particularly good idea...

To wit, then, from pages 45 and 46 of FPI's "One New York" report:

"Pensions are a source of increasing insecurity and cost pressure for all workers. Those who have pensions through their employer are being asked to contribute increasing amounts to it, and those who don't are straining to set up and manage their own 401(k) or similar account.

The governor and the legislature can help by setting up a single fund to which all New Yorkers can contribute pre-tax dollars. The fund might offer options for accounts that offer defined benefits as well as traditional retirement accounts. The cost savings to people making contributions could be considerable, since fees on a large single fund would be substantially smaller than individual accounts. As with the state's common retirement fund for state and local government workers, professional management of a large state fund has shown that returns will be greater than small investors typically receive. Of course, a voluntary state retirement system for all New York workers would in no way substitute for the current system of public sector pension plans."

Your thoughts?...

[will be asking colleagues in our County Legislature to help push Albany on these]

Toll-free number for Governor/Senate/Assembly: (877) 255-9417.

Joel
876-2488
joeltyner@earthlink.net
http://www.RealMajorityProject.blogspot.com

p.s. Let's also not forget some other great suggestions in the FPI "OneNew York" report-- restoring revenue sharing from Albany with municipalities tothe level it was at in the 70's (p. 28), single-payer health care (p. 12), and info throughout the report on restoring fairness and progressivity to our state's tax code by returning it to the structure it had in 1972, with fourteen different income tax brackets between 2% and 15% (instead of the way it is now, with only five income tax brackets between 4% and 6.85%-- a de facto flat tax so that folks making $30,000 a year now pay the same tax rate to Albany as those making $30 million a year)!...see http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FAIRTAX for more...

p.p.s. Finally, check out this paragraph from page 41 of the report:
"The state tax system is now so distorted that the governor and the legislature should undertake a comprehensive review. An essential part of what the governor and the legislature should do, however, is to help localities to reduce property taxes by restoring progressivity to state income taxes. In addition, the state government could give localities more flexibility in how they collect taxes, allowing them to move away from over-reliance on property and sales taxes and instead raising funds through a local version of an income tax. The governor and the legislature should consider giving county governments the authority to levy a "piggyback"income tax for county government purposes. Such a tax could be structured like the income tax that the city of Yonkers is currently authorized to impose. The use of such an option would make a county's revenue system more progressive and place less of the burden on middle and lower income residents." [!]

[note-- see http://www.WorkingFamiliesParty.org on this as well-- the WFP has come out strongly in favor of this option to raise revenues for counties (instead of jacking up county property or sales taxes higher-- or cutting county services)]

p.p.p.s. Don't forget...

Fact: The County Executive has proposed raising an extra $12 million in taxes inthree ways-- re-instating a sales tax on clothing and footwear under $110, continuingthe current 3.75% sales tax, and hiking the mortgage tax from 1% to 1?% (see http://www.DutchessNY.gov ).

Fact: Both sales and property taxes are too high and unfairly regressive, as theyoften bear little relation to our ability to pay (unlike income taxes). 80% of New Yorkers now actually pay more in sales taxes than they do in property taxes. Dutchess County’s homeowners now spend well over half a billion dollars a year on property taxes for school, county, town, village, and city governments, and fire and library districts. 60% of New Yorkers pay more in property taxes than they do on income taxes (see http://www.ITEPnet.org/wp2000/ny%20pr.pdf ).

Fact: Only 40% of New York City’s local tax revenue comes from property taxes because NYC has a local income tax— while across the state well over 70% of local government tax revenue comes from property taxes (because there are no local income taxes, except in Yonkers).
[Maybe it is time to consider a local income tax in Dutchess to slash property taxes!]