Post by dgriffin on Mar 26, 2011 9:35:11 GMT -5
Dismal upstate census numbers show Albany overtaxation and regulation are driving people out of NY
The population exodus from upstate New York shows that people have voted with their feet to leave the Empire State and its restrictive tax burdens.
There's no more devastating commentary on how badly New York has been run for decades - and how urgent it is for Gov. Cuomo to turn things around - than the slow-motion evacuation of upstate as documented by the 2010 census.
Virtually every burg west or north of Albany either lost population over the past decade or barely held steady.
Hardest hit was Buffalo, which saw fully 11% of its population shuffle off since 2000. What was once among the major metropolises in the United States is down to 261,000 holdouts.
Also hemorrhaging people were Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, Niagara Falls and scores of other once-thriving cities, towns and villages.
The families who used to live in those places voted with their feet against the Vampire State's highest-in-the-nation tax burden, bloated government bureaucracy and dismal business climate.
People who stayed voted against that too - by electing a man to radically change Albany.
Those loyal New Yorkers gave Cuomo a landslide mandate to do what he said he would do - muzzle Albany's special interests, chop away wasteful bureaucracy, rein in out-of-control spending and hold the line against tax hikes.
Now, Cuomo must make good on those promises - by sticking to his guns in end-game budget negotiations with the Legislature.
His proposed spending plan held true to his campaign agenda. It's the leanest budget Albany has seen in at least 15 years - one that balances a record $10 billion deficit without raising taxes or adding to New York's debt.
But he's running into predictable flak from big-spending special interests and the lawmakers who dance on their strings.
Assembly Democrats under Speaker Sheldon Silver are rejecting Cuomo's caps on medical malpractice suits and demanding taxes on the rich.
Senate Republicans under chief Dean Skelos are balking at Cuomo's prison closing plan.
Both houses are banging the drum for more spending, especially for schools. Cuomo must hang tough - and use all constitutional advantages at his disposal.
He must insist that lawmakers enact a budget by the March 31 deadline - or face the consequences. Those being an application of gubernatorial power to put a full year's worth of spending cuts in the emergency spending bills that lawmakers would have to pass to keep the state operating.
The pols have a choice: Back Cuomo, or shut the state down. They dare not. They must see the wisdom of Cuomo's plan. Otherwise, we will be doomed to an even more dismal census in 2020.
Read more: www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/03/26/2011-03-26_dismal_upstate_census_numbers_show_albany_overtaxation_and_regulation_are_drivin.html#ixzz1HiNV1046
IMHO Cuomo won't prevail, or not to any extent that would relieve me from much of my tax burden. And to the extent he may win a few battles, each will result in a cutback of services to the middle class, I can almost guarantee you. Was it last year they tried to close the State Parks upstate? For that and other reasons such as the weather as I age, I've decided to leave my home state of NY and move south where from what I've seen retirees are welcomed with lower taxes and amenities more suited to my age group. In fact, property taxes where I'm relocating are essentially halved at age 65. I said property taxes.
It will take a bit of work for me to get there, but I'm up to it and we've already begun the process of building a home and putting ours up for sale.
Here in NY state I feel that retirees are singled out to be drained of their savings, then thrown on the junk heap when they can no longer pay their taxes. It has happened to friends and acquaintances. Tax bills of 400 or 500 per year when a home was purchased years ago have in some areas grown to 8 or 9 thousand dollars per year. (That example comes from the Albany area, not Westchester County.) The mortgage payment you had hoped to someday eliminate is now erased, but the taxes far exceed the what in retrospect seems a puny monthly mortgage payment. And to watch your income remain fixed while it's buying power drops close to 10 percent per year and have the local school superintendent say he can "keep the school tax increase this year to 12%" is truly unnerving. When a desperate elderly widow wrote a moving letter to the editor last year, the superintendent personally visited her to explain how she could borrow money to pay her taxes to his school district. What a guy.
Goodbye (I hope) to New York, the blood sucking Vampire State.
