On a day when the MTA voted to raise fares from $2.00 to $2.50, eliminate numerous bus lines, and the cut back off-peak subway service, I suddenly realized how little we know about how our city and state operate. The MTA and transit workers union have been lightning rods of criticism, from sloppy service, to recent strikes, yet, very few people truly know how the MTA is funded, and what it takes to operate our massive transportation system. To save on time and keystrokes, I steer you towards another blogger, http://www.transitblogger.com/mta-finances/mta-funding-editorial.php that provides a concise, yet effective job explaining the MTA’s funding.
I understand that as inflation and costs rise, transportation should be impacted. It is not sound business to provide a service and then lock in revenue streams (in this case fares) without controls for unexpected circumstances that adversely affect the ability to produce said returns. The ability to raise fares must be elastic, so the fact that we might have to pay an extra $0.50 per subway ride is just another reality of city living.
However, in a city where its major governing body voted itself another four years of work, where the recent Governor and Comptroller were shamed out of office, where its financial base (and, for that matter, the country’s financial base) have been pulverized by horrid markets, and where many workers depend on affordable public transportation, I question the wisdom of raising fares now. Now, when times are truly bad people are looking to local government to provide normalcy, and a sense of stability that they are not getting from Washington. Unfortunately, these fare hikes are another serious reminder that things have yet to hit rock bottom.
The 50 cent raise does not impact MATC’s ability to maneuver through the five boroughs; I can easily cut back at the bar or eating out. Its one of the great perks of being a bachelor. This raise, though, hits families and couples especially hard, since they have to move multiple people from place to place. It is adding addition pressures to the very people that make our city great.
It’s not right to say something is wrong and not propose alternatives. Here’s my plan, to help fill in the $500 million dollar gap.
Raise the NYC Commuter Tax
The City should levy a higher tax for those living outside of the five boroughs and make over $100,000. They should be very strict about those big-wigs that have crash pads in the city, yet live in the rolling hills of Westchester or Fairfield County. You work here, make the big bucks, so, you must ante up! We can call it the “Bridge and Tunnel Tax.” If they don’t like it, then work somewhere else. From a preliminary search, it seems like roughly 2 million people commute into the five boroughs to work. If we trust this number, then tack on an extra $100 to their commuter taxes, we can help offset some of these budget numbers.
Total Income: $200 million
Tourists
New York City is the country’s biggest tourist attraction. Just Broadway alone keeps the City on the world’s cultural map. Hit these tourists in the Euro! Or, even better, the Pound! Tack on a foreign gate tax at LaGuardia and on NJ Transit from Newark, and on all taxis coming from the local airports into Manhattan. Add restaurant taxes (say .05%) from 86th street to Wall Street, and at all of the hotels. Make people pay to play, and alleviate the cost of living for the people that actually call this city home. According to the always reliable WikiAnswers, over 44 million people visit New York City as tourist. If we simply charged a “$20 per tourist tax,” that gives the city an addition $800 million in revenue to help offset our MTA problem. I know this is not simple, but if anyone can get another $20 from a tourist, it’s a NEW YORKER!
Total Income: $800 million
Sports Teams
The major sports teams that actually play in the city should get hit hard in their endless wallets. The city did much to push through both baseball stadium projects and, if the Mayor got his way, would have been redeveloping Manhattan’s west side and the Queens coastline in preparation for the Olympic Games. Instead, both baseball franchises got nice deals to put their stadiums on public land, with long-term leases. For time’s sake, lets focus on the Yankees.
The Yankees’ new stadium sits on the historic Macombs Dam Park. Unknown to the average fan, Macombs Dam Park is older than the old Yankee Stadium. Both stadiums now occupy public land, and the Yanks do little for the privilege. Besides not providing much post-season excitement, the Yankees seem to find a way to get out of paying for the lease on the 12 acre plot of public land they occupy. During the early 90s, unabashed Yankee fan Rudy Goooooliani signed a sweetheart deal that basically absolved the Bombers from paying their lease and other taxes to the city.
The City should rip that up, and make all four NYC franchises pay $20 million annually to have the right of wearing the NY logo on the gear. If they want to move to Jersey, let them, they just have to leave the name “New York” here.
Total Income: $80 million
Wow, I just raised over $1 billion for our great city, with minimal impact on the folks that live here. I’m going to keep this locked away for my big run for Mayor…
- MATC
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
#1 - Bronx Elected Officials
Barack Obama and The Bronx
Barack Obama's well-oiled campaign and subsequent election victories have
done much to inspire our country and reinvigorate public faith in our
electoral process. After the 2000 debacle and the voter disenfranchisement
issues, it appears that those that might have been skeptical about
electoral process came out en masse this past November. Regardless of who
won the election, this is a net positive.
During this election we served as eye witnesses the power and reach of
technology. For the first time, the Internet was harnessed to reach voters,
inform the public, and show multiple sides of candidates. Youtube,
Facebook, and MySpace all played important roles in mobilizing online
communities, thus drastically affecting the election. Younger voters were
touched in 2008 in ways the 2004 election could have only hoped. In
addition to being touched, many actually voted, surely swinging counties
and states that helped turn the tide of the election. I think of this
effect in a place like Bucks County, PA, (where I was raised) where you
have a mixture of Conservative Republicans and Regan Democrats (and not
many Black folk) yet it, and the other surrounding Philadelphia counties
went to Obama. I would not have thought this possible when I lived there.
Although this election has inspired many, including this writer, in so many
was, it also has shown me how important local activity is. In the after
glow of this historic year where national politics has mesmerized our
imagination, local politics must now fill this significant void. This is
especially important in The Bronx.
The Bronx is only a two-party system by name; the Democratic Party has
controlled it for the better part of two centuries. Even Abraham Lincoln
lost the popular vote here in both 1860 and 1864. The big party bosses of
the late 19th and early 20th century did much to operate outside of Tammany
control, and build the infrastructure that transformed The Bronx from a
sleepy collection of backwater villages, towns, and farms, to the northern
extension of Manhattan. The development of the Bronx park system (with New
York City's largest park and 4 golf courses), the expansion of subways, the
building of multi-family apartment buildings, the building of a Grand
Concourse and Boulevard, were all great examples of politicians and private
enterprise working closely to develop and improve the borough. Political
connections and influence were crucial during the Depression as Bronx ties
enabled Boss Ed Flynn (a Fordham Grad) to bend the ear of FDR, and have
federal funding go to projects such as the construction of 149th Street
Post Office, numerous schools and the Bronx County Courthouse building that
kept Bronxites working during the midst of the worst economic time in
recent memory. It was this same influence that brought presidential
candidates to the Concourse Plaza Hotel to work for Bronx voters' support.
When is the last time a presidential candidate made it a priority to
campaign in The Bronx?
Obama's election, subsequent momentum and excitement must be redirected
to cast a suspicious eye on Bronx elected officials. For those that don't
know, there was a lengthy and embarrassing fight over the position of Bronx
Democratic Chairman between Assemblymen Jose Rivera and Carl Heastie that
included shady party votes, threats, intimidation, and pending court cases
of who the true Democratic leader is. In the process, Bronx elected
officials, many of whom were looking at term limits and the prospect of
losing lucrative part time employment as elected officials, voted
themselves the possibility of another four years in office by following
Mayor Bloomberg's lead to extend term limits. All the while, gang violence
continues to senselessly claim lives, Bronx schools are used as incubators
for new teaching philosophies (however flawed), and small cultural and
community institutions are looking at severe budget cuts because government
money is drying up. Much of this can be solved by effective, sound advocacy
by elected officials that take up the Bronx's cause, and fight tooth and
nail for every dollar that is allotted. Instead, other boroughs (like
Brooklyn) do all the talking, and make sure their cultural institutions get
funding, streets get cleaned, and people want to visit and live there.
People want to come to visit Yankee Stadium, and then they get the hell
out, barely stopping for food in Belmont before tearing it back to Jersey,
Upstate, Connecticut, or the Island. They surely pay little or no attention
to million plus residents who call this borough home when Yankee Stadium's
mercury-vapor lights shut down.
The Bronx is stuck in the muck of ethnic politics that stagnate an entire
borough, adversely affect 1.4 million people, and causing much of the
positivity over the last 25 years to be overshadowed by petty in-fighting
that threatens the borough's future vitality. This election should show our
elected officials that The Bronx is not for the Puerto Ricans, or
Dominicans, or Africans, or African-Americans, or the Asians, or the Jews,
or the Albanians, or Inuit; it is for all of us. The multi-ethnic audience
that heard Obama on the National Mall was The Bronx: from the Bronxites
that traveled to hear and see it in person, to the Bronxites that forged
the Iron of the Capital Dome to the Bronxites that took Daniel Chester
French's design and sculpted the Lincoln Memorial Statue, on January 20,
2009, the Bronx was in Washington, DC.
Although there have been very active, and positive Bronx politicians over
the last three decades (Fernando Ferrer, Jose Serrano, Wendell Foster,
Herman Badillo come to mind) far too many have been experts in mediocre
politics, putting money into questionable pet projects, suspect non-profits
and their own pockets, practicing the worst kind of nepotism, committing
crimes while in office, ducking constituent meetings as if they are as busy
as heads of state, and missing crucial votes under mysterious circumstances
while the people and institutions they are voted to serve suffer. That is,
unless you are the New York Yankees, and want to use tax-free bonds build a
new stadium on a historic park instead of renovating your previously
tax-payer funded Stadium that you don't pay taxes on anyway. Other than
Councilmember Helen Foster, where were the dissenting, critical voices?
They were busy being leading the roll call in section 39, bleachers.
I'm happy that Barack Obama is our 44th president. However, I am worried
that we will bask in this after glow for too long, and loose our chance to
truly enact local change. Bronxites must stand up and force our elected
officials to demand for better quality grocery stores, more bookstores,
better public health education, better schools, safer community recreation
spaces, and less sneaker/cellphone/jewelery/fast food stores, less gangviolence, and a campaign to encourage tourism as an end to people bad mouthing The Bronx. Regardless of who's in Washington, we must make sure that The Bronx is rightly represented.
- MATC
Barack Obama's well-oiled campaign and subsequent election victories have
done much to inspire our country and reinvigorate public faith in our
electoral process. After the 2000 debacle and the voter disenfranchisement
issues, it appears that those that might have been skeptical about
electoral process came out en masse this past November. Regardless of who
won the election, this is a net positive.
During this election we served as eye witnesses the power and reach of
technology. For the first time, the Internet was harnessed to reach voters,
inform the public, and show multiple sides of candidates. Youtube,
Facebook, and MySpace all played important roles in mobilizing online
communities, thus drastically affecting the election. Younger voters were
touched in 2008 in ways the 2004 election could have only hoped. In
addition to being touched, many actually voted, surely swinging counties
and states that helped turn the tide of the election. I think of this
effect in a place like Bucks County, PA, (where I was raised) where you
have a mixture of Conservative Republicans and Regan Democrats (and not
many Black folk) yet it, and the other surrounding Philadelphia counties
went to Obama. I would not have thought this possible when I lived there.
Although this election has inspired many, including this writer, in so many
was, it also has shown me how important local activity is. In the after
glow of this historic year where national politics has mesmerized our
imagination, local politics must now fill this significant void. This is
especially important in The Bronx.
The Bronx is only a two-party system by name; the Democratic Party has
controlled it for the better part of two centuries. Even Abraham Lincoln
lost the popular vote here in both 1860 and 1864. The big party bosses of
the late 19th and early 20th century did much to operate outside of Tammany
control, and build the infrastructure that transformed The Bronx from a
sleepy collection of backwater villages, towns, and farms, to the northern
extension of Manhattan. The development of the Bronx park system (with New
York City's largest park and 4 golf courses), the expansion of subways, the
building of multi-family apartment buildings, the building of a Grand
Concourse and Boulevard, were all great examples of politicians and private
enterprise working closely to develop and improve the borough. Political
connections and influence were crucial during the Depression as Bronx ties
enabled Boss Ed Flynn (a Fordham Grad) to bend the ear of FDR, and have
federal funding go to projects such as the construction of 149th Street
Post Office, numerous schools and the Bronx County Courthouse building that
kept Bronxites working during the midst of the worst economic time in
recent memory. It was this same influence that brought presidential
candidates to the Concourse Plaza Hotel to work for Bronx voters' support.
When is the last time a presidential candidate made it a priority to
campaign in The Bronx?
Obama's election, subsequent momentum and excitement must be redirected
to cast a suspicious eye on Bronx elected officials. For those that don't
know, there was a lengthy and embarrassing fight over the position of Bronx
Democratic Chairman between Assemblymen Jose Rivera and Carl Heastie that
included shady party votes, threats, intimidation, and pending court cases
of who the true Democratic leader is. In the process, Bronx elected
officials, many of whom were looking at term limits and the prospect of
losing lucrative part time employment as elected officials, voted
themselves the possibility of another four years in office by following
Mayor Bloomberg's lead to extend term limits. All the while, gang violence
continues to senselessly claim lives, Bronx schools are used as incubators
for new teaching philosophies (however flawed), and small cultural and
community institutions are looking at severe budget cuts because government
money is drying up. Much of this can be solved by effective, sound advocacy
by elected officials that take up the Bronx's cause, and fight tooth and
nail for every dollar that is allotted. Instead, other boroughs (like
Brooklyn) do all the talking, and make sure their cultural institutions get
funding, streets get cleaned, and people want to visit and live there.
People want to come to visit Yankee Stadium, and then they get the hell
out, barely stopping for food in Belmont before tearing it back to Jersey,
Upstate, Connecticut, or the Island. They surely pay little or no attention
to million plus residents who call this borough home when Yankee Stadium's
mercury-vapor lights shut down.
The Bronx is stuck in the muck of ethnic politics that stagnate an entire
borough, adversely affect 1.4 million people, and causing much of the
positivity over the last 25 years to be overshadowed by petty in-fighting
that threatens the borough's future vitality. This election should show our
elected officials that The Bronx is not for the Puerto Ricans, or
Dominicans, or Africans, or African-Americans, or the Asians, or the Jews,
or the Albanians, or Inuit; it is for all of us. The multi-ethnic audience
that heard Obama on the National Mall was The Bronx: from the Bronxites
that traveled to hear and see it in person, to the Bronxites that forged
the Iron of the Capital Dome to the Bronxites that took Daniel Chester
French's design and sculpted the Lincoln Memorial Statue, on January 20,
2009, the Bronx was in Washington, DC.
Although there have been very active, and positive Bronx politicians over
the last three decades (Fernando Ferrer, Jose Serrano, Wendell Foster,
Herman Badillo come to mind) far too many have been experts in mediocre
politics, putting money into questionable pet projects, suspect non-profits
and their own pockets, practicing the worst kind of nepotism, committing
crimes while in office, ducking constituent meetings as if they are as busy
as heads of state, and missing crucial votes under mysterious circumstances
while the people and institutions they are voted to serve suffer. That is,
unless you are the New York Yankees, and want to use tax-free bonds build a
new stadium on a historic park instead of renovating your previously
tax-payer funded Stadium that you don't pay taxes on anyway. Other than
Councilmember Helen Foster, where were the dissenting, critical voices?
They were busy being leading the roll call in section 39, bleachers.
I'm happy that Barack Obama is our 44th president. However, I am worried
that we will bask in this after glow for too long, and loose our chance to
truly enact local change. Bronxites must stand up and force our elected
officials to demand for better quality grocery stores, more bookstores,
better public health education, better schools, safer community recreation
spaces, and less sneaker/cellphone/jewelery/fast food stores, less gangviolence, and a campaign to encourage tourism as an end to people bad mouthing The Bronx. Regardless of who's in Washington, we must make sure that The Bronx is rightly represented.
- MATC
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