The Empire Page

After a delay of around a year, the full impact of the recession is hitting New York. Federal stimulus money and some kind of time delay might have blunted the blow for a while but it is clear now there is big budget trouble. I have always been of the opinion that national economic trends take a year to hit New York. For years everybody has gotten what they wanted as the budget grew bigger, unions got raises, business leaders got tax breaks and the good times kept rolling. Now the party is over and it is time for everyone to take a hit. Shared benefits needs to lead to shared sacrifice.

I am a Federal employee and our raise this year was less than half what we normally receive. However our union understood that in tough economic times we cannot get what we did in the past. The usual protests we raise to get what we deserve were absent. We knew that we had to sacrifice like millions of other Americans were doing. We were fortunate to have our jobs and any raise at all.  We also knew that the President was looking at all ideas to right the economic ship this meant raising revenue (taxes and fees) and in an important issue to us looking at the cost-effectiveness of the massive privitization the government had undergone over the previous 8 years. Re-examining privately contracted duties could both save government jobs and save the taxpayers money. The President has been looking at shared sacrifice and we as employees understood that.

This is not happening in New York State or City. The Governor is asking the unions to forego at least part of their agreed-upon 4% increase (for the record more than twice what I got this year) to help solve the budget deficit. The unions intrangience on this issue led the Governor to institute furloughs, that were later overturned by the courts, and now significant layoffs of State employees threatened in January.  The unions need to realize that getting a 4% raise now is unrealistic and they need to do their share to help the State’s economy. However, they should not be the only ones sacrificing. All options should be on the table including raising revenue. Options like the stock transfer tax, which would a few pennies on  every shares traded, should get serious consideration. This tax would mostly effect those that can most afford to pay it and would only be a miniscule addition to the cost of doing business in New York State. Those against the tax say it would drive the financial industry out of New York State and that all trades would be cleared out of state to avoid the tax. This is highly debateable and shoud be examined before ditching the idea. Also, like President Obama, the Governor should look at private contractors who are doing duties usually done by public sector workers to make sure we are getting a good bang for the buck.  Other ideas would be to rein in the out of control and un-monitored expenses of quasi-public authorities. These are just some of  the ideas to will show that all are sharing in sacrifice  that need to be in discussion before balancing the budget on the backs of public sector workers and the poor. The current,and future, Governor have to think in this way.

New York City also targets public sector workers, particularly teachers,  in balancing the budget. Massive teacher layoffs are threatened just when our kids need them most. However at the same time the Department of Education increases salaries of a number of educrats.  It is a basic truism that teachers are underpaid for the importance of the work that they do and while there needs to be some reform in union work rules to blame all education problems on teachers while heaping outsize salary increases on educrats is unfair.

In short be ready New York to feel the brunt of economic hard times. If sacrifice is not shared fairly then the only choice would be to drastically cut the services we all depend on whether it is education, health care, transportation or housing.