http://www.freenys.org/

[WNYresident]

http://www.freenys.org/

[WNYresident]

Natural Laws

As water flows downhill, capital and young talent will flow to where it earns the greatest return. Unfortunately for those of us who live in Upstate NY in 2004 under current Albany leadership, this means capital, young talent, high paying jobs, and the tax base flows out of Upstate NY to other states.

Similarly, people, in need and able to choose, live where the benefits are the greatest. Again unfortunately for those of us who live in Upstate NY in 2004, those not working – the unemployed, injured, chronically sick, and retired will comprise an ever larger proportion of the population.

In such an environment, businesses in other states will continue to gradually put businesses in this state out of business and the Upstate economy will loose relative to other states.

A region or business must benchmark its performance against competing regions. The leadership in Albany does not do this. Our leaders go merrily along, securing their political career by serving special interests, taking special interest money, and using their power to control our representatives and the elective process.

[WNYresident]

If this is true this needs to be stoped now. You think it's out of hand now, it's only going to get worse


The situation is analogous with regard to civil service pensions. In Onondaga County, state mandated county pension costs have moved from $1 million in 2001 to $24 million in 2004. NYS is requiring taxpayers, many who lost some one third of their 401(k) and other retirement investments in the 2000-2003 stock market declines, to make up the civil pension losses for the same period. Both the county portions of the Medicaid and civil pension increases are being made up with higher property and sales taxes. The generous state pension benefits, along with an unusually high number of local government employees (63/1000 versus 49/1000 people nationally), create a $4 billion a year economic drag on the Upstate economy. The bottom line is that proportionally more people are receiving extremely generous benefits that fewer people are providing.