Archive: Opinions

EditorialLansing schools are facing an approximately two million dollar budget gap due to circumstances beyond the district's control.  State and Federal aid to schools is going way down.  The schools want the state to fill in the gap.  The state wants the federal government to fill in the gap.  And property taxpayers are hunkering down, waiting to learn what the bad news will be on their tax bills this summer.  Will it be bad news, really bad news, really really bad news, extremely bad news, or disaster?

This week New York Governor David Patterson sent a letter to New Yorkers telling us that our state deficit has now risen to $9 billion, and he is taking some harsh measures including a new $500 million in cuts.  According to a 2005 Census Bureau study, New York ranked eleventh in the list of states ranked by the highest taxes per capita.  But New York ranked second in the total amount of taxes paid altogether.  Only California was taxed more than New York.

"We cannot spend what we do not have," Patterson stated in his letter. "Families across New York understand that. It is time that Albany gets with the program. State government needs to live within its means. The revenues that supported decades of overspending are gone. The mistakes of the past -- squandering surpluses, papering over deficits, relying on irresponsible fiscal gimmicks to finance unsustainable spending increases -- have led us to a financial breaking point."

On the federal level, the national debt is over $12 trillion and growing at a rate of about $3.97 billion per day.  If every one of the more than 300 million U.S. citizens paid almost $41,000 the debt would be paid off.

So here's the situation.  The schools want the state to continue funding at the same rate or better than before, but the state owes $9 billion even with cuts and new taxes Patterson says will equal $42 billion before he is done.  And the state wants the feds, in debt to the tune of $12 trillion plus, to give them dollars to help their budget deficit.

I have a question: if New York is getting more money than 48 other states, where did it go?  If all things were equal, wouldn't you think New York would have all the things other states provide and have a healthy surplus?  What are we getting for all the money we've been paying the state?  And why should property taxpayers have to pay more to make up for that spending?  Who was stupid enough to spend all that money they didn't have?

The answer, unfortunately is this: most of the chatter you hear locally sees 'us' as being local property taxpayers and others who are being saddled with more and more unfair taxes, and 'them' as the state and federal governments.  I once heard a story about a government doing that until local taxpayers dumped a bunch of tea into Boston Harbor and eventually formed a new country to replace the old one.  Here is the difference: in that case 'us' were local people being taken advantage of by a 'them' that was a colonial empire.  Today 'us' is 'them.'

The state and federal governments are as much our governments as the school district, town, and fire district are.  That's our money going into federal and state coffers.  If property taxpayers don't pay for the schools, income taxpayers do.  Such a high percentage of our school budget comes from state money that you have to wonder what's going on.

Filtering all that money through the state instead of keeping it local gives people who don't live near here a lot of power over our schools.  They can tell us what we have to do and they don't have to fund those mandates.  When you think of it that way it seems like a silly system.

The problem is that all these taxes keep going up.  And when the state is taxing soda and just about everything else it can think to tax, when high state officials begin to whisper about delaying tax refunds -- money that doesn't even belong to them -- you expect that the money we thought we were paying for school aid would continue.  The bottom line is that we pay a lot more and get a lot less all of a sudden.  And then we have to pay a different governmental entity a LOT more because the other government pissed away the money we are giving them.

Ironically the fact that Patterson decided not to run for reelection due to recent scandals gives him more credibility in the remainder of his term as a non-political crusader trying to get the state budget under control.

"It is time to build a strong foundation for our future with long-term fiscal discipline," Patterson said.  "If New York is to continue leading the nation's economy -- and creating good jobs for our people -- then our State must be an affordable place for families to live and businesses to grow. Building an affordable future means spending cuts in our State budget, fiscal responsibility in our State government, and lower property taxes for our State's people."

Here here.  Except for one thing: NOW is not the time to build a strong fiscal foundation.  That time was years and years ago.  That the state allowed this to go on for so long is a travesty.  The people we elected did this to us, and the way democracy works that means we did it to ourselves.  If we're serious about undoing it then we have to get rid of those people we elected.  They have already done a lousy job with our money.

When you suggest that we throw the bums out and replace them with people who understand that you buy what you can afford, you get looks that suggest that you are nuts.  But that is exactly what we have to do if we're serious about fixing the budget (I will accept those 'you're nuts' looks now, thank you very much).  Congress's approval level is at an all time low.  Nobody is thrilled with the New York State Legislature.  Let's stop grousing and throw them all out and get someone who will respect us, respect our money, and do something about taxes, giving us true value for the money we entrust them for.

Because the bottom line is that 'them' is us.'  If we don't do it, nobody will.

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