Chris Christie: Districts With High Opt-Out Rates On PARCC Will Likely Face Funding Cuts And Tax Hikes

This is certainly ratcheting up the counter attack on the opt-out movement:

During a Town Hall appearance on Thursday in Cedar Grove, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told a packed auditorium that the PARCC opt-out movement will have ramifications beyond his control.

“It’s their right if they want to opt out… There’s nothing I can do to stop them,” Christie said, suggesting that the likely consequences are funding cuts and higher taxes. “But then don’t come later and complain you don’t get the money that you’re used to.”

Politicians and educrats in many states are making vague threats about cuts in federal aid to school districts but Christie, with his usual bluster, has gone a bit further.

High opt-out rates will result in higher taxes.

That's a potent threat from a governor who refuses to support an increase to the gas tax in New Jersey even as the state's infrastructure falls apart (literally in some cases) and the public rail system faces tens of millions of dollars in short falls.

An increase in the gas tax would raise money to keep New Jersey bridges from falling into the water and NJ Transit from fare hikes and service cuts 5 years after a 22% fare hike and cuts to service.

But Christie refuses to support a gas tax hike because he's looking to run for president touting himself as a governor who doesn't raise taxes in a Republican primary where raising any tax is heresy to conservative voters.

Yet he's willing to raise taxes on school districts with high opt-out rates.

This says a lot about Chris Christie and where he stands on the Endless Testing regime.

No taxes can ever be raised in New Jersey, even if that means part of the Pulaski Skyway falls into the river - but if too many parents opt their kids out of the PARCC tests (He's looking at you, Montclair!), tax hikes are coming!

Remember When The Governor's Secretary, Larry Schwartz, Tried To Fix The Sandra Lee "Permit" Problem?

Through a PR rep, Sandra Lee said that she has no business before the state and therefore should not have to disclose her financial information:

ALBANY — State Senate Republicans may want her to publicly disclose her finances, but Gov. Cuomo’s celebrity chef girlfriend, Sandra Lee, insists none of the companies she owns has business before the state.

“None of the companies Ms. Lee owns lobby or have business before the state,” a Lee spokeswoman said Saturday.

“Ms. Lee and the governor fully comply with all current disclosure laws.”
But the spokeswoman did not respond to a question about deals Lee might have with companies she doesn’t own but do have business before the state.

Cuomo and Lee have lived in her Westchester County house together for years, but because they are not married, she does not by law have to publicly disclose her financial information like the spouses of public officials must do.

Okay - great.

Then Sandra should have no problem disclosing that information and her paramour, Sheriff Andy, ought to have no problem with the disclosure too.

After all, if there's nothing to hide, there's nothing to be afraid of, right?

Except maybe there is something they're afraid of.

Last year it was revealed that Lee and Cuomo refused to get building permits for improvements they made to their house and property and refused to allow the tax assessor to enter the premises to see just how those improvements would affect their property taxes.

The person who pushed back on the press was the governor's secretary, Larry Schwartz, not a Lee PR person:

An email message to Lee at the Food Network was answered by Larry Schwartz, Cuomo's secretary in Albany. He said any work performed at the Lee-Cuomo residence as noted in the USA Today article was "all decorative renovations and they don't require building permits. ... It was retiling, painting, wallpapering. It's like her line of work — decorative. I'm not aware of any rooms that were combined."

And what of the basement remodeling noted in the New York magazine article?

"Again, the key word is decorative," Schwartz wrote in an email. "Window treatments."

Here we have a state employee - one who is paid for more than Governor Cuomo and is the second most powerful figure in the executive branch after the governor himself - responding to Lee's email messages sent to the Food Network.

Gee, how did Larry Schwartz, a state employee in the Cuomo administration, get involved in this matter and doesn't that represent a conflict of interest?

Schwartz is currently still raking in his $181,000+ salary a year in a new position specifically created for him after the administration said he was stepping down from the secretary position to pursue a job in the "private sector."

Schwartz is also the Cuomo administration official who had subpoenas to Cuomo donors from the Moreland Commission "pulled back" during the anti-corruption panel's heyday.

He went in front of federal prosecutors investigating alleged tampering into Moreland by the Cuomo administration in August and is said to be "toxic" now as a result of rumors he will be indicted for corruption.

After the Dicker column reported Schwartz was still on the payroll, Cuomo said he is just cashing in his vacation days and will be gone sometime in March.

Now maybe it's perfectly legal for Lee to have used Schwartz, Cuomo's "fixer," to respond to emails to her at the Food Network even though she's not a state employee and the matter did not touch on state business.

But it certainly smacks of hypocrisy to claim that Lee has no business with the state when she's using the governor's secretary to respond to queries from the press that pose a political problem for her paramour, Sheriff Andy.

Also, you have to wonder, if Andy and Sandy used Larry Schwartz to put out the fire around the Lee permit business, what other items did they use him or other Cuomo admin officials or state employees for?

Cuomo wants to play like he's above politics and corruption in this ethic reforms battle, but the truth is, he's above neither and the citizens of this state need some sunlight to see just how compromised he is or isn't.

Just as Cuomo keeps saying that if teachers are so great at teaching, then they shouldn't worry about being evaluated by his "toughened" evaluation system, I say "If Andy and Sandy have nothing to hide in their finances, then they should have no problem revealing those to the citizens of the state."

What's Going On In Budget Negotiations

State of Politics on the current state of the negotiations:

Asked if he was reviving de Blasio’s push for a tax increase on those earning $500,000 and more a year to pay for a city-wide version of the plan, Silver didn’t deny it.

“I’m looking for a reliable, sustainable funding source throughout the state,” he said.

It is an interesting turnaround for the budget talks, which come a day after 59 people were arrested outside of the governor’s office protesting tax and spending cuts in the proposal.

Silver last week indicated he was on board with the Senate’s one-house budget resolution that proposed spending $540 million on universal pre-Kindergarten without a tax increase, as long as no strings were attached.

But now Silver suggested on Friday the resolution was a “fiction.”

“I’m not sure what the Senate proposed,” Silver said. “It’s hard to read that resolution and read that fiction. I read biographies. I read histories. But I never read fiction.”

It’s a knife-twisting comment and is in many ways vintage Silver, who has confounded Republicans, especially Gov. George Pataki, during budget talks in previous years.

Silver has the most votes in Albany thanks to a large Democratic majority in the Assembly and has been known to effectively hold out for his conference’s agenda in the closed-door talks.

I have a difficult time seeing Silver come out of negotiations with the tax increase de Blasio wants - not with Cuomo strongly opposed to the plan.

Also have a difficult time seeing Silver hold the line on all the charter school issues Cuomo wants in the budget.

But we'll see soon enough.

Cuomo Already Looks To Cut De Blasio's Pre-K Money

One of the arguments Mayor de Blasio used for why he wanted to raise taxes on people making over $500,000 a year in NYC to fund his pre-K program is that he could on the money being there every year.

If the money for the pre-K program came from the state rather than the tax hike, the funds would be subject to the whims of the governor, the legislature and the budgeting process in Albany and could be cut (or eliminated) at any point in time.

Cuomo, seeking to undercut de Blasio's power and prestige, not to mention keep him from raising taxes in Cuomo's re-election year, engineered it so that de Blasio would be unable to raise taxes to fund the program but would get the money from the state.

Cuomo said this about the pre-K funding on January 21:

“All the educators will tell you this is the single most advantageous reform that a state can make, that the younger you get children into school, the more open and accessible their brain, the more they can take in earlier,” said Cuomo. “It’s a priority. We believe in children, we believe in pre-k, we believe in education. Let’s put our money where our mouth is and make it a reality.

“This budget includes a fully funded five-year plan to cover the additional costs of full-day pre-K across the state,” Cuomo said. “We currently estimate the cost at about $1.5 billion over the next five years.”

That was January 21.

Here's what we learned Friday:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed to reduce the amount of prekindergarten funding for New York City in the state Senate's version of the budget, calling a top senator to lobby for the cut, according to people familiar with the conversation.

Mr. Cuomo's call on Tuesday was to Senate Majority Co-leader Jeffrey D. Klein, a Bronx Democrat who played a lead role in crafting the Senate's budget priorities and a supporter of Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans to expand prekindergarten.

Mr. Cuomo, also a Democrat, argued that the Senate shouldn't set aside $540 million per year for pre-K and afterschool programs in the city, saying it was too much, the people familiar with the call said. Mr. de Blasio has said the city would require around $540 million.

...

 

In an interview Friday, Mr. Cuomo suggested that Mr. Klein wanted the $540 million in the Senate resolution to score political points. Mr. Klein leads a breakaway faction of Democrats who have helped Republicans maintain some control in the Senate, despite their dwindling numbers, and faces a potential primary challenge in the fall.

"Jeff Klein's political issues are his business at this point," Mr. Cuomo said. "Whether he has a primary and who challenges him and who supports him should be left to politics." 

In an email, Mr. Klein said: "$340 million for 50,000 four-year-olds or $340 million for Wall Street banks. Let's have the public decide." He was referring to the amount his budget specifically sets aside for pre-K.

Mr. Cuomo's call to Mr. Klein, over a budget resolution with no practical effect, demonstrates how the level of prekindergarten funding has become a delicate political issue in Albany. Until now, Mr. Cuomo was seen as having outboxed Mr. de Blasio by saying he would fund pre-K without a tax increase, while remaining vague about how much money he would set aside. Now two houses of the Legislature support the funding level Mr. de Blasio wants, and the Senate version eliminates tax breaks for renters and homeowners the governor wanted as he faces re-election.

Cuomo may have outboxed de Blasio over the pre-K/tax issue, but one of the ways de Blasio can hit Cuomo back is to hammer him when the state inevitably doesn't fully fund the program.

It's clear already that the program is not a priority for Cuomo, which is why he was trying to get Klein and the IDC to cut the funding for NYC in the Senate budget proposal.

If I'm de Blasio, I go at Cuomo over this and say "Hey, what gives? You said the money would be there from the state, so that's why I don't get the tax hike, but now you're already cutting the funding before the program even starts? What's this funding going to look like in Year Three Or Year Four?"

In the end, Cuomo doesn't care about pre-K or children, he simply wants to keep any tax increase from going through in his re-election year.

If the call to Klein and the undercutting of the de Blasio program before it is even starts isn't the proof of that, I don't know what is.

De Blasio Vs. Cuomo

Inevitable that Sheriff Andy would want to make sure Bill de Blasio knows he's the boss.

Cuomo says he can get an extra $250 million for full-day pre-k funding without raising taxes - a kind of one year windfall in the budget.

De Blasio says the funding needs to be sustainable and over a period of years - in short, taxes need to be raised on individuals making $500,000 or more, as his plan calls for.

Cuomo says 2014 (Sheriff Andy's re-election year) is going to be a tax cut year - in other words, no new taxes, not even on individuals making $500,000 to fund NYC full-day pre-K.

De Blasio got support yesterday from labor groups, including the UFT, for his plan.

State Senator Jeff Klein, part of the Senate leadership contingent, endorsed the plan over the weekend.

One side is not going to win this battle.

One of the papers this morning (forget which one at this point) said this is a battle for political primacy in New York State.

I think that's true - and I think it's important that de Blasio win it.

Sheriff Andy has has his way too long in this state.

Bill O'Reilly: Jesus Died So You Could Have Low Taxes

I know you think it's some Onion piece I'm putting up here.

But no, seriously - it's what O'Reilly wrote:

In Killing Jesus: A History, Bill O’Reilly and writing partner Martin Dugard bring us their long-awaited “accurate account of not only how Jesus died, but also the way he lived.” This should settle two millennia of Christian debate. Although it lacks suspense (SPOILER ALERT: he dies), it’s a pretty good read and it’s fleshed out with tidbits about the ancient world.

...

The basic argument of the book is that Jesus died because he interfered with the taxation-heavy Roman revenue stream. The reason the Jews eagerly anticipated the Messiah, writes O’Reilly, is, “When that moment arrives, Rome will be defeated and their lives will be free of taxation and want.”

It’s true that the people did long for the Messiah, that the majority of them were poor and oppressed, and that very few benefited from Roman occupation. But even if the Romans had been overthrown the people would have still been paying tithes to Jewish authorities to sustain the Temple, as Biblical and Jewish laws demand.

O’Reilly argues that Temple taxes and profits from the moneychangers were back-channeled to Rome. Thus when Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers he “interrupted the flow of funds from the Temple to Rome.”

He’s right: the Temple incident led to Jesus’s arrest and execution and the Romans were responsible for killing Jesus. But there is no evidence that the Romans benefited from the financial affairs of the Temple during Jesus’ lifetime. Pilate didn’t get dibs on the lamb shanks some used to pay the priests. Jesus died because he was a rabble-rouser who disturbed the peace and challenged the authorities. Jesus didn’t die for our W2s.

Even if Jesus’s actions had been all about taxes, he died protesting a skeletal taxation system that privileged the rich. Wealthy citizens were exempt from most taxes altogether, non-citizens paid a flat-rate poll tax regardless of income, the property tax was 1 percent, and the money from taxes was used to build roads and fund the military. It's not like the Romans did anything obscene like tend to the poor.

Making tax cuts holy and religious - that's Bill O'Reilly.

12% Teaching Force Reduction In Philadelphia

The Mayor of Money here in Gotham Schools City is planning an 8% reduction in the teaching force.

Philly got 12%.

Tax cuts for hedge fund managers and multi-national corporations?

Priceless.

NY Times Poll: Americans Say Raise Taxes On People Making Over $250,000 A Year

Somebody tell Little Andy "No Taxes For Millionaires!" Cuomo - Americans want to tax rich people:

Americans are more pessimistic about the nation’s economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama’s first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

At a time of rising gas prices, stubborn unemployment and a cacophonous debate in Washington over the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations, the poll presents stark evidence that the slow, if unsteady, gains in public confidence earlier this year that a recovery was under way are now all but gone.

Capturing what appears to be an abrupt change in attitude, the survey shows that the number of Americans who think the economy is getting worse has jumped 13 percentage points in just one month. Though there have been encouraging signs of renewed growth since last fall, many economists are having second thoughts, warning that the pace of expansion might not be fast enough to create significant numbers of new jobs.

The dour public mood is dragging down ratings for both parties in Congress and for President Obama, the poll found.

...

Mr. Obama has considerable support for his proposal to end tax cuts for those earning $250,000 a year and more: 72 percent of respondents approved of doing so as away to address the deficit; 24 percent disapproved.

And, in what he can take as a positive sign for his argument the nation has a duty to protect its most vulnerable citizens, about three-quarters of Americans think the federal government has a responsibility to provide health care for the elderly and 56 percent believe it has a similar duty to the poor.

“Keep people’s taxes and give them medical benefits,” Richard Sterling, an independent voter of Naugatuck, Conn., said in a follow-up interview.

People don't want taxes increased on THEM.

But given how few people actually make over $250,000 a year, you can raise taxes on THOSE PEOPLE, reduce budget deficits, keep services AND run a country that isn't THIRD FUCKING WORLD.

And wouldn't that just be peachy?

But instead, "Democrats" like Little Andy Cuomo (or Christie-Lite, as Spitzer dubbed him yesterday) want to reduce taxes on millionaires, throw old people out onto the street with food or health care and slash school budgets to the bone so the only thing left being funded is the FUCKING STANDARDIZED TESTS.

This sounds like a fabulous plan to complete the feudalization of America.

It is NOT, however, a plan to "share the sacrifice," as Little Andy and other corporate pols claim.

America: Raise Taxes On Rich People

Apparently the austerity measures and "shared sacrifice" promoted by both Republican and Democratic politicians are not very popular with Americans:

Despite growing concerns about the country’s long-term fiscal problems and an intensifying debate in Washington about how to deal with them, Americans strongly oppose some of the major remedies under consideration, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey finds that Americans prefer to keep Medicare just the way it is. Most also oppose cuts in Medicaid and the defense budget. More than half say they are against small, across-the-board tax increases combined with modest reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits. Only President Obama’s call to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans enjoys solid support.

...

The Post-ABC poll finds that 78 percent oppose cutting spending on Medicare as a way to chip away at the debt. On Medicaid — the government insurance program for the poor — 69 percent disapprove of cuts.

...

In his speech last week, the president renewed his call to raise tax rates on family income over $250,000, and he appears to hold the high ground politically, according to the poll. At this point, 72 percent support raising taxes along those lines, with 54 percent strongly backing this approach. The proposal enjoys the support of majorities of Democrats (91 percent), independents (68 percent) and Republicans (54 percent). Only among people with annual incomes greater than $100,000 does less than a majority “strongly support” such tax increases.

An across-the-board tax increase is decidedly less popular, at least when coupled with benefit reductions. A report by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility , co-chaired by former senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, recommended “shared sacrifice.” But in the poll, a slim majority — 53 percent — opposes small tax increases and minor benefit cuts for all as a way to significantly reduce the debt. Strong opposition to that kind of solution outnumbers strong support by 2 to 1.

There is broad support for keeping Medicare structured the way it has been since it was instituted in 1965: as a defined-benefit health insurance program. Just 34 percent of Americans say Medicare should be changed along the lines outlined in the Ryan budget proposal, shifting it away from a defined-benefit plan. Under that proposal, recipients would select from a group of insurance plans providing guaranteed coverage, and the government would provide a payment to the insurer, subsidizing the cost. Advocates say this approach is more sophisticated than a pure voucher plan.

The message is clear - raise taxes on rich people.

Start with the richest 400.

Then move to Wall Street and the hedge fund managers.

People are seeing through this tax nonsense.

Rich people are paying the lowest rate of taxes in decades.

Most corporations aren't paying any taxes at all.

Only middle and working class people are paying a substantial portion of their incomes to taxes even as the programs that help these people the most face the starkest cuts under the austerity measures promoted by people like Chris Christie and Little Andy Cuomo.

It's time to end this nonsense.

Raise taxes on rich people.

Taxes

Went to the accountant and had my taxes done.

Asked him if I could do what General Electric CEO and President Obama's new jobs czar does and skip out on paying any taxes.

He said no.

Something about tax liability and fraud and jail.

For me, not for GE or for Immelt.

Oh, and the $250 tax break for teachers is gone too.

So glad the Bush tax cuts and the Cuomo tax cuts on millionaires went through.

Tell Cuomo - Protect Children, Not Millionaires

From the Alliance for Quality Education:

NY Times: General Electric Pays No Taxes

The meme on Fox News is that the U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world and that's why the economy is so poor.

Heck, I've heard that same meme from Republican-lite Dems like Little Andy Cuomo and Barack Obama who claim that business is so overburdened with taxes that the first thing government must do is lighten that burden.

I don't believe that meme.

I know that corporations use all kinds of loopholes and havens to avoid paying taxes

When I read articles like this in the Times, I see just how right I am:

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.

In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.

Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.

Yet many companies say the current level is so high it hobbles them in competing with foreign rivals. Even as the government faces a mounting budget deficit, the talk in Washington is about lower rates. President Obama has said he is considering an overhaul of the corporate tax system, with an eye to lowering the top rate, ending some tax subsidies and loopholes and generating the same amount of revenue. He has designated G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, as his liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and it is expected to discuss corporate taxes.

“He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Immelt, on his appointment in January, after touring a G.E. factory in upstate New York that makes turbines and generators for sale around the world.

Just another example of the New Feudal Order - taxes are for the little people, not for General Electric or Bloomberg LP.

Oh, and notice the connection between Chancellor Klein, Charlie Rangel, Harlem, Bloomberg, charter schools and a $30 million dollar GE grant to NYC schools.

Pay your cronies off a little bit, reap billions in tax rewards, and promote union-busting charter schools at the same time.

That's bringing good things to life, all right.

Cuomo Slashes Aid To Blind, Deaf And Disabled Children

Little Andy Cuomo - the governor who likes to call everybody else a "special interest" that must be eradicated in order to make state government work - has decided that blind, deaf, and disabled children are on the special interest eradication list:

Gov. Cuomo wants to slash state funding to schools for the blind, deaf and severely disabled - and is asking local school districts to pick up the tab.

Cuomo's proposed budget eliminates all direct funding to 11 schools serving such children - including three in the Bronx, one in Queens and one in Brooklyn.

"To do this to our kids is just not right," said Jeannette Christie of Throgs Neck, the Bronx, whose son suffers from a rare vision disorder and attends the New York Institute for Special Education in her home borough. "These schools are needed."

Advocates say the move is a departure from tradition because the state has financed the education of the blind and deaf directly for more than a century.

"The students who come to our school are some of the most vulnerable people in the state," said Frank Simpson, superintendent of the Lavelle School for the Blind in the Bronx.

Under the governor's budget, the state would rely on local districts to front the money to fund the schools. The state would then partly reimburse the districts.

Still, the state's annual contribution would shrink by roughly $14 million, and advocates say it would take too long to get the money. They claim the change could shutter the schools, displacing 1,500 children in need of special care.

But a state Budget Division spokesman said the cut was a needed savings and that the proposal would advance "consistency and equal treatment" of all students at the schools, which cost the state $112 million a year.

Overturning a century of tradition and throwing blind, deaf and disabled children out onto the streets.

Wow - some policy.

Meanwhile as the NY Times details this morning, Cuomo is making sure his corrupt cronies in the health care industry are getting paid off.

They say that budgets are not just financial documents but also statements of ideals.

We can see from the way Cuomo has handled the budget just what his ideals are - stealing money from deaf and blind children and handing it to his hedge fund and Wall Street criminal friends or his health care industry cronies.

Little Andy is an arrogant prick and he thinks his 77% approval ratings give him license to do this kind of thing with impunity.

But you better watch out, Little Andy - a few days of the kind of coverage you got today in the Times over your health care industry corruption and in the Daily News over your relish to throw deaf, disabled and blind children out onto the street and those approval ratings are going to be plummeting earthward.

"Tax The Rich! Tax The Rich!"

Little Andy Cuomo got more than he bargained for during his speech in which he spewed the usual jive about state costs and taxes:

ALBANY - Gov. Cuomo's speech on Sunday night to the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators was interrupted with chants of "Tax the rich!" led by City Councilman Charles Barron.

Cuomo received a warm welcome as he began to address the group, but within moments Barron (D-Brooklyn) did a Kanye West and stole the spotlight.

"Shame on you," Barron yelled at Cuomo after walking from the back of the Albany Convention Center to the front.

"Stop the cuts," Barron said.

"How are you tonight, Charles?" Cuomo said to Barron after the interruption. "I can't see who it is, but I know who it is."

Barron, a known rabble-rouser, seized the moment, yelling, "Tax the rich!"

Soon the chant caught on with a small but vocal group in the crowd of more than 500.

Cuomo's budget calls for deep cuts to education and health care spending to close the state's $10 billion deficit. He also opposes extension of the state's so-called millionaire's tax, which expires at the end of the year.

Barron and many Democratic legislators want the tax extended to help blunt many of Cuomo's proposed cuts.

Earlier, Barron described Cuomo's budget as Draconian.

"It is cutting us to the bone," Barron told the Daily News. "Tax the rich. Don't come to the table saying the only thing you're going to do is cut."

The Rev. Al Sharpton also criticized Cuomo's budget and urged lawmakers to oppose it.

Cuomo pointed to his 77% approval ratings and said he was confident the state was behind him on his policies to pursue cuts rather than higher taxes on wealthy people.

Let's see how those approval ratings look AFTER the cuts, Little Andy.

When people watch their senior centers closed, daycare programs cut, school budgets slashed to the bone, teachers laid off and class sizes heading toward 40, and parks and libraries closed all the while that the hedge fund and Wall Street criminal class continue to party like it's 1928, I bet those approval numbers don't look so good.

You see, people love to hear about cuts in the abstract, especially when they're aimed at OTHER people.

But when they start to hit home for them (as these Cuomo cuts will), it's a whole different story.

Bloomberg - Cayman Island Tax Cheat

The Wikileaks source who has handed over the names of 2,000 individuals and institutions who have used the Cayman Islands as a venue to avoid paying taxes said the following today:

"Working in the Cayman Islands I realized that something was wrong... I want to let our society know what I do know because it's damaging our society in a way that money is moved away by financial institutions, multinational conglomerates and high-net-worth individuals, money is hidden in offshore ventures."

Guess who likes to use the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes on his philanthropic foundation?

Mike Bloomberg's idea of charity still stops at U.S. taxpayers. The latest filings for the mega-foundation run by New York's richest resident shows that he pumped a whopping $420 million last year into his do-gooder operation - cue the cheers! -- while parking $75 million in offshore tax havens -- Hiss! Boo!

You don't have to be a card-carrying Bloomberg Basher to think this is the bigger part of the story. Even the mayor's own Bloomberg News carries the Associated Press's story today by Sarah Kugler Frazier with a lede emphasizing the tax dodge:

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg's money managers invested more than $75 million of his money in offshore tax havens in 2009, according to his philanthropic foundation's latest tax forms, continuing an activity seemingly at odds with his public statements about the economy."

The response from City Hall spokesman Stu Loeser is that this is all designed for the public good: The mayor "pays an enormous amount in taxes, but his foundation's investment strategy, like those of many other large foundations, is designed to maximize the amount of money going to charity," Loeser told the AP.

Ah, yes - a foundation strategy to avoid paying federal, state and city taxes or, as we used to call this kind of thing back in the day, a foundation strategy to cheat on their taxes.

Bloomberg's excuse?

Hey, all the cool foundations do it!

Indeed they do.

And they are engaging in tax fraud.

Can't wait to see the names of the individuals and institutions Wikileaks divulges from the Cayman Islands tax cheat disks.

I'm not saying Bloomberg or his foundation are going to be on that list, but you can bet some of those foundations Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loesser referred to in his "All the cool foundations are cheating on their taxes!" statement will be.

And regardless, Bloomberg uses all the usual tax dodges to cheat on his taxes:

According to an extensive review of the mayor’s financial records by The Observer, even as Mr. Bloomberg was trying to counter the loss of taxes and other income from the richest New Yorkers, the foundation he controls was in the process of shuttling hundreds of millions of dollars out of the city and into controversial offshore tax havens that would produce nothing at all for the city in terms of tax revenue.

By the end of 2008, the Bloomberg Family Foundation had transferred almost $300 million into various offshore destinations—some of them notorious tax-dodge hideouts. The Caymans and Cyprus. Bermuda and Brazil. Even Mauritius, a speck of an island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Madagascar. Other investments were spread around disparate locations, from Japan to Luxembourg to Romania.

...

BEYOND THE U.S. BORDER, in places like the Caymans, the climate for charities is much more inviting. Nonprofits like the Bloomberg Family Foundation are tax-exempt, but some investments that aren’t related to an organization’s core mission can be subject to a levy called the Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT, for short). So to avoid more than 40 percent in federal and local taxes on unrelated businesses, nonprofits use a legal loophole, routing investments through offshore tax havens.

“It cleanses the unrelated business taint from the total return,” Harvey Dale, of the N.Y.U. School of Law, told The Observer. “You invest in the same thing through an offshore entity. You are making the same investment; you are just putting an intermediary entity in the middle. Instead of investing directly in the hedge fund, you invest in the foreign entity, which, in turn, invests in the hedge fund.”

“Is (using the loophole) allowable under the law? Yes,” said tax expert Dean Zerbe, a former staffer at the Senate Finance Committee. “Is it something that is a best practice, particularly by an elected official? I think they should look very hard when they are engaging in this kind of activity. What does it say to the average New Yorker?”

The foundation’s tax returns indicate that Mr. Rattner’s team migrated much of its money to large hedge funds with ostensible island charters, including several in the Caymans, two of which list an address at P.O. Box 309 of the Ugland House, a building that “houses” an estimated 12,000 to 18,000 foreign businesses.

...

But tax havens—despite the protestations of the president, a slew of senators and at least one district attorney—remain legal. “I made a lot of effort to shut down that loophole,” former district attorney Robert Morgenthau told The Observer.

Mr. Morgenthau said he’d spoken generally about offshore loopholes to four U.S. secretaries of the Treasury, twice to the commissioner of the general revenue and, as it happens, to Mr. Bloomberg himself. The mayor seemed uninterested in the offshore issue, he said. “I’ve talked to the mayor about it, and the budget director,” Mr.

Morgenthau said. “We did get help from the State Division of Taxation and Finance. But nothing from the city.”

Gee - I can't imagine why Bloomberg wouldn't want to help Morgenthau close the tax dodge with 12,000-18,000 businesses "housed" in it.

Oh, right - because his foundation has a P.O. Box there.

Bloomberg is a tax cheat and a crook.

In addition, as he screams about falling tax revenue and the need for budget cuts and layoffs, he is a hypocrite.

Were he to close the tax loophole that allows companies based in NYC to skirt tax laws by using Ugland House in the Caymans, maybe the city wouldn't need to cut the budget so much or lay any employees off.

But that would mean ending a tax dodge he and his Wall Street and corporate criminal friends have been enjoying for years and there is NO way Bloomberg is going to do that.

So instead we have to wait and see who is on the Wikileaks: Cayman Islands Edition list and shame the crooked bastards into paying their taxes.

Because how much you wanna make a bet that Barack Obama's government is NOT going to go after any of the tax cheats named on the Wikileaks list?

How much you wanna bet they go after Wikileaks instead?

Data I Can Believe In

Could our financial, political and corporate elites be about to experience a "data accountability" moment?

LONDON — A former senior Swiss bank executive said on Monday that he had given the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other possible criminal activity.

Rudolf M. Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank Julius Baer for eight years until he was dismissed in 2002, refused to identify any of the individuals or companies, but he told reporters at a news conference that about 40 politicians and “pillars of society” were among them.

He told The Observer newspaper over the weekend that those named in the documents come from “the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia — from all over,” and include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic.”

Mr. Elmer handed two computer disks to Mr. Assange at the news conference, the first significant public event the WikiLeaks founder has held since he was arrested in London in early December after Swedish prosecutors sought to have him extradited on charges of sexual crimes there. He has denied the charges but was briefly jailed last year before bail was granted.

Wearing the same dark blue suit he has worn through his legal battles, Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks would verify and release the information, including the names, in as little as two weeks. He mentioned possible partnerships with financial news organizations and suggested he would consider turning the information over to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, which investigates financial corruption.

Mr. Elmer, who previously provided documents from his former employer to national tax authorities including the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, said he had turned to WikiLeaks to “educate society” about what he considers an unfair system that serves the rich and aids those who seek to launder money.

His recent offers to provide further data to universities and governments were spurned, he said, and he thought that the Swiss media had failed to cover the substance of his accusations. “The man in the street needs to know how this system works,” he said, referring to the offshore trusts that many “high net worth individuals” around the world use to evade taxes.

...

The offshore banking industry has come under increasing pressure in recent years amid accusations that places like the Caribbean, with looser financial laws, allowed investors to avoid taxes and that some banks helped to create complex webs of companies and trust funds there to confuse tax authorities abroad.

In 2009, Bradley Birkenfeld, a former private banker for UBS, disclosed some of the industry’s illegal tactics and forced the bank to turn over details of several thousand client accounts to the I.R.S. as part of a legal settlement. UBS agreed to pay a $780 million fine and admitted criminal wrongdoing.

Still, Mr. Assange said in London on Monday, financial institutions usually “operate outside the rule of law” because of their economic power. WikiLeaks itself has been “economically censored,” he said, by companies like Visa and MasterCard, which stopped processing donations to it late last year in response to its release of hundreds of thousands of classified United States documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and thousands of State Department cables.

WikiLeaks, perhaps signaling a new focus, has also said it would release information from an American bank, thought to be from a Bank of America executive’s hard drive, early this year. But, Mr. Assange said, the site is not fully “open for public business” owing to the weight of the existing leaks it is struggling to process.

Will the very same news outlets dying to print the names and "value-added" ratings of NYC teachers publish the names of the thousands of tax cheats, criminal companies and fraudsters Wikileaks is about to drop on the public?

Because THIS kind of data IS an accountability moment.

You know, the kind of thing they claim to be doing by printing names and rankings of teachers despite the fact that the ratings have a 35% margin of error?

Inflation? What Inflation?

This inflation:

The extra cash New Yorkers would take home under the proposed payroll tax cut will be gone before you can even daydream about how to spend it.

Price hikes for things like MetroCards and health care premiums will eat up the $67 to $178 a month you'll get from a one-year, 2-percentage-point reduction in the Social Security taxes you pay.

...

A couple who each earn $40,000 a year will get $800 apiece from the payroll tax cut - a combined $133 a month to spend on themselves and their two kids.

But the basics will cost them $200-plus more a month in the coming year. Here's the breakdown:

Health premiums: $100
# Canale's seeing 20% hikes in premiums for employer-provided health coverage, with workers paying part of the increase.

One spouse with the two kids on his health plan could pay $50 a month more if his employer is generous in helping cover the premium increase. The other spouse could pay $50 more for health coverage she gets through work.

MetroCards: $30
# If husband and wife both use monthly MetroCards to commute to work, they'll fork over $15 more apiece. The card's price is rising about 17%, to $104.

Rent: $27
# If they live in a rent-stabilized apartment, as many Queens families do, their $1,200-a-month rent will increase about 2.25% for a one-year lease, Arthur Chiaramonte of Capital Appraisal Services said.

Car: $19
#

City parking meter fees go up 25 cents an hour next year, said Robert Sinclair, a spokesman for AAA New York. Using parking meters after work and on Saturdays could cost $8 more a month. The couple might pay $8 a month more for occasional use of Metropolitan Transportation Authority-controlled bridges and tunnels; tolls increase $1 for cash-paying customers.
#

It's impossible to predict how much gas prices could rise, but a new federal tax will start at 5cents a gallon, Sinclair said. If the couple buys a weekly tank of gas, that's an extra $3 a month.
#

This doesn't count new surcharges of $50 if they renew their car registration or $16 apiece to renew their driver's licenses - or a $235 fine if theydisobey a new law requiring drivers to get out of the wayof police cars, fire trucks and ambulances.

Movies $16
# More and more, kid-friendly movies are 3-D, and theaters charge $2 extra a ticket, Canale said. That's a $16 increase if the family goes to the movies just twice a month - and doesn't up the size of its popcorn tubs.

Food shopping: $15
#

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts a 2% to 3% annual hike in food prices for 2011, which will affect the $500 a month the family spends on food shopping, Canale said.

Con Ed: $6
# The family's $150 monthly bill will be hit with a 4% annual rate hike in April - part of a three-year package of increases the state Public Service Commission okayed last spring.

Yet the NY Times says Obama will enjoy a big political lift from the tax cuts aimed at middle class people (never mind that a family making less than $40,000 and an individual making less than $20,000 will actually see a tax INCREASE.)

But I doubt Obama gets a political lift from these temporary cuts.

With everything else going up, with unemployment at 9.8%, long-term unemployment even higher and corporations enjoying their most profitable quarter ever even as they continue to cut costs, outsource jobs and do everything they can to NOT hire Americans, economic times are too scary for a few extra dollars a month for a year to mean much to most people.

Obama Raises Taxes On Poor People To Pay For Tax Cuts For Wealthy People And Hedge Fund Managers

Seriously - that's what he is doing:

The deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years includes a bevy of additional credits and deductions that will reduce the burden on nearly all households.

But the tax benefits will flow most heavily to the highest earners, just as the original cuts did when they were passed in 2001 and 2003. At least a quarter of the tax savings will go to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

The tentative deal includes a two-year patch for the alternative minimum tax, a reduction in the payroll tax and a plan to reinstate the estate tax with lower rates and higher exemptions than in 2009 — all of which will offer far more savings for high earners than those in the low- or middle-income bracket.

The wealthiest Americans will also reap tax savings from the proposal’s plan to keep the cap on dividend and capital gains taxes at 15 percent, well below the highest rates on ordinary income.

And negotiators have agreed that the estimated $900 billion cost of the cuts will simply be added to the deficit — not covered by reductions in spending or increases in other taxes. That is good news for hedge fund managers and private equity investors, who appear to have withstood an effort to get them to pay more by eliminating a quirk in the tax code that allows most of their income to be taxed at just 15 percent.

In fact, the only groups likely to face a tax increase are those near the bottom of the income scale — individuals who make less than $20,000 and families with earnings below $40,000.

“It’s going to look like the rich are getting richer again,” said Anne Mathias, an analyst for MF Global Inc.

Completely outrageous.

Raising taxes on individuals making less than $20,000 and families making less than $40,000 in order to extend the Bush tax cuts to wealthy people and keep hedge fund managers from paying their fair share.

How's that for change we can believe in?

Obama has been pulling this neo-liberal sell-out garbage since he got elected, but this one takes the prize for WORST SELL-OUT EVER.

I thought Obama's insistence that food stamps be cut so that his Race to the Top program could withstand any spending cuts was the worst sell-out ever, but this tax deal is worse than even that one.

You know what to do...

WHITE HOUSE CONTACT:

Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

But I Thought They Cared About The Deficit?

Here's how the NY Times describes the way the Obama/GOP deal to extend the Bush tax cuts will be funded:

WASHINGTON — President Obama announced a tentative deal with Congressional Republicans on Monday to extend the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels for two years as part of a package that would also keep benefits flowing to the long-term unemployed, cut payroll taxes for all workers for a year and take other steps to bolster the economy.

...

The package would cost about $900 billion over the next two years, to be financed entirely by adding to the national debt, at a time when both parties are professing a desire to begin addressing long-term fiscal imbalances.

Hey, wait - didn't Obama just freeze the salaries of federal workers, including some making as little as $25,000 a year, because of concerns over the national debt?

And didn't Republicans run the midterm races talking about deficit concerns and warning of dire consequences to come if the debt isn't taken care of?

And yet they're funding the tax cuts by adding $900 billion to the debt?

Another fantastic example of hypocrisy in action in Washington D.C.

Reminder: Caption Contest

Just a reminder - the Klein/Black caption contest is ongoing.

You can place your entries here.

The winner gets an all expense paid, tax free trip to Mayor Bloomberg's Cayman Island tax haven.

You'll be wined and dined and feted just like you were Mayor Moneybags - all without a dime in tax being paid to the U.S. government, New York State, or New York City.

Isn't that exciting!

The contest closes Sunday night at midnight.