City can no longer afford to...

[Unregistered]

Give tax breaks to corporations. That policy, along with taxing current, non-paying, tax exempt properties, will give the city the added cash flow it needs. To actually put money in city coffers, a commuter tax on workers who work in the city, but live in the suburbs will create revenue. And finally, forcing the county to share with the city, the extra 1% it currently receives, and keeps all to itself. These steps will create a healthy atmosphere for the city , as well as enabling it to pay off its debt. That is what the Control Board should come in and do. People, and companies aren't going to like it, and there would be pain, but these steps would create a healthy, vibrant city.

[Unregistered]

Why does the county get anything anyhow? We need a bad ass control board. Its not like what they are taking is getting invested in the community. Some is but not enough.

This is not patriotic issues, this is which gang gets what they can extort out of the tax payer.

I honestly wish we had fed control board.

Did you hear what the mayor of buffalo request was? So he looks good with the unions they should have one of the organize "crime" opps unions on the board..

WHy not just bend us all over and start? :)

[Unregistered]

I love the idea of a commuter tax. I'm urging all the suburbs, especially Amherst, to do exactly the same thing...tax the city residents who work in the suburbs.

Certainly, a commuter tax makes sense for Lockport. Delphi employs 5,000 people....all of whom can't possibly live in Lockport. It's easy cash.

Such stupid ideas from people who believe Buffalo has a revenue problem rather than an archaic system of governance that costs too much and provides too little.

And I'm all for taking away tax breaks from business once we reduce the cost of doing business in New York State. Under your plan, the only good jobs will be government jobs. The whole region will turn into South Buffalo where everyone is eating at the public trough.

[Unregistered]

Wow! I coundn't have said it better myself. well done.

[sethtriggs]

Originally posted by Unregistered
I love the idea of a commuter tax. I'm urging all the suburbs, especially Amherst, to do exactly the same thing...tax the city residents who work in the suburbs.

Certainly, a commuter tax makes sense for Lockport. Delphi employs 5,000 people....all of whom can't possibly live in Lockport. It's easy cash.

Such stupid ideas from people who believe Buffalo has a revenue problem rather than an archaic system of governance that costs too much and provides too little.

And I'm all for taking away tax breaks from business once we reduce the cost of doing business in New York State. Under your plan, the only good jobs will be government jobs. The whole region will turn into South Buffalo where everyone is eating at the public trough.

Actually, Buffalo does have a revenue problem. The median income in Buffalo approaches $21,000. Couple that with the tax-exempt property, aged infrastructure and payments on debt (like the teachers contract that wasn't honored) and you've got a serious revenue problem. I understand your fear that someone's life might marginally be improved through government assistance. But do not fear, such things are disappearing, we have welfare reform. In time we will be a feudal society with no welfare or unions to needle, and we can all work for $3.00/hour or less.

-Seth

[Curmudgeon]

"Actually, Buffalo does have a revenue problem. The median income in Buffalo approaches $21,000."

Buffalo has an EXPENDITURE problem, not a revenue problem.
The reason why the median income is so low is that anybody with any intelligence realized what a ripoff the city of buffalo is and moved away. What remains are people with lesser intellegence and/or ambition. Those people usually have a lesser income because their work product is of lesser value.
What really needs to happen is the dissolution of the city as a legal entity and the discharge of all city employees. The city will then be "Erie county" - merger by default. The county can then hire people and subcontractors to do the business of managing the city. Outsource and privatize just about everything.
There are other cities in the US that are run exactly as I described, and they are doing quite well.
Or, you can begin to tap into the surrounding municipalities revenue and take them down as well.

[WNYresident]

Yep! we are having too much of a swing of poor versus rich. THe middle class in buffalo is gone it seems.

Plus when we are trying to make all city/goverment workers upper middle class you just can't do that.

A garbage man is a garbage man no matter how you look at it. You can always find someone to work for less. NOW do not yell and say we should hire illegal immigrants, that's not what i mean.

The weird part is we can't get OUR local goverment administrators to take pay cuts but they seem to throw pay cuts at the firemen, police, etc...

[Curmudgeon]

"A garbage man is a garbage man no matter how you look at it. You can always find someone to work for less. "
Sad but true. What a waste of human capital to see someone who could be so much more benefical to himself and society as a whole trapped by "the steady paycheck" of a garbageman.
A garbageman should be one of the following:
Someone of limited intelligence.
A young person with no direction.
A convicted felon whom no one will hire.
Ideally, grabage collection should be privatized to a private contractor.

[WNYresident]

It is sad but it's life.

Same as a lot of the other workers. They are nice people but there are people that will work for a reasonable pay. Remember everytime our goverment makes it easier for third world countries to take OUR jobs, that's less work for the people at home.

Thank you nafta? Was that the free trade thingy?

[sethtriggs]

Originally posted by Curmudgeon
"Actually, Buffalo does have a revenue problem. The median income in Buffalo approaches $21,000."

Buffalo has an EXPENDITURE problem, not a revenue problem.
The reason why the median income is so low is that anybody with any intelligence realized what a ripoff the city of buffalo is and moved away.

So my point stands, as does your gratuitous slam of the city. Of course, depending on perspective, any municipality can be seen to have an expenditure problem. However, that does not change that there is a lack of tax revenue in the city of Buffalo. That happens irregardless of your feelings of the lack of worth of the city and/or its people.



What remains are people with lesser intellegence and/or ambition. Those people usually have a lesser income because their work product is of lesser value.


I guess that includes me. My income is actually pretty good for a single individual, and I am a graduate student at the University at Buffalo. I guess that must count as lesser intellegence. [sic]

I also love your assumption that those with a low income are necessarily less ambitious or less intelligent. You are quite a paragon of hatefulness.



What really needs to happen is the dissolution of the city as a legal entity and the discharge of all city employees. The city will then be "Erie county" - merger by default. The county can then hire people and subcontractors to do the business of managing the city. Outsource and privatize just about everything.


It worked so well for British Rail. Heh... I think they have a wreck every week now.

The funny thing is, I thought that's what the control board is doing - the union crushing the elected officials really couldn't do unless they were suicidal.

And what of the suburbanites who will cry about this, because this will mean that their county taxes are going to help the city.



There are other cities in the US that are run exactly as I described, and they are doing quite well.
Or, you can begin to tap into the surrounding municipalities revenue and take them down as well.

I don't know, there's quite a few cities that also do well with their existing patterns. Buffalo's problem is bad planning. So many of the city's issues could've been solved with good planning. Additionally, the refusal to honor agreements made things worse. Had the teachers' contract been honored, things would have been a lot better.

But additionally, we need more forward-thinking people. Many people are mired in the past. But never make the mistake of thinking it stops at the city line. Provincialism and all its evils is something that's an upstate New York trait.

Even with the things that are the fault of the government and the people, and don't think I'm excusing them at all, but let's not discount that the major companies here did not upgrade their facilities to make them more profitable. Modernization seemed to be a bad word around here, and we suffered for it. The historical accident of being a cradle of industry also creates trouble with severely polluted land that no developer will touch. And of course, the weather, which we cannot control. Right now companies are moving south not as much for the anti-union things but the warmer climate lets them save on heating costs.

In my best case, all of the municipalities work together to strengthen the region.

-Seth

[sethtriggs]

Originally posted by WNYresident
It is sad but it's life.

Same as a lot of the other workers. They are nice people but there are people that will work for a reasonable pay.


Define reasonable.

I know union-bashing is pretty de rigeur here, especially since there is quite a bit of valid criticism—a number of unions are corrupt. But then again I don't see someone supporting a family on $5.75/hr, even full time. This is with inflation, as $5.75 many, many years ago was damn good money. That money built lots of good works in the community and good spirit.

Unions do fight for better wages and benefits for their members. It's their role. The company doesn't have to honor them, and besides unions have much less power nowadays.

But the other, overlooked (on this site) issue is that unions were responsible for getting companies to make workplaces safer. Unfortunately, as we all know, safety costs money. I guess I'd be a bad capitalist, because if I were running a company I would want my workers to be safe, so I could maximize their efficiency. A safe, properly paid worker is a happy worker, and that equals a good worker.



Remember everytime our goverment makes it easier for third world countries to take OUR jobs, that's less work for the people at home.

Thank you nafta? Was that the free trade thingy?

It was, but globalization was OLD news by the time NAFTA rolled around. Really, NAFTA was drafted for big business, something diehard union haters seem to overlook. NAFTA was created to allow companies to more easily (remember they had been doing this before) ship labor overseas where they could pay workers around 3 cents an hour. You want to see what the USA will be like long-term? Look at Thailand. Lots and lots of poor people and a few folks up top. There's only so many burgers that can be flipped, you know. The "reasonable wage" people probably think that if everyone in the country is flipping burgers that things will be OK.

So it's not the government that makes it OK to destroy American jobs. Honestly, they don't really want that. Politicians want to say, "I created jobs!" No, NAFTA is for the benefit of big business (which does donate to politicians).

Economics makes it easier for "third world" countries to take "our jobs" (Wow, you're sounding like a union man!)

You know that the jobs are moving out of even those blessed anti-union places in the USA? Yes, they're going overseas, because why would someone in the ruthless climate of business pay $7.00 an hour to a North Carolina resident to assemble furniture when you can get a Mexican to do it for 15 cents?

Ah well, guess we're just on the fast track to feudalism. More and more, the future looks like the past!

-Seth

[Curmudgeon]

"I guess that includes me. My income is actually pretty good for a single individual, and I am a graduate student at the University at Buffalo. I guess that must count as lesser intellegence. [sic]"

I would say that "Data" is not the plural of "Anecdote".
I submit that my comments on intelligence were bombastic in nature but not intended to be interpreted so literally. What IS true is that the lack of value the city provides in its delivery of services vs. the cost demanded from the taxpayers drives people and businesses away. And, those people are probably the people the city wants to retain the most. The same thing happened in East Germany in the 50's - the Brain Drain. The communist governments' solution was to build a wall to keep the people from leaving. It didn't work.

"I also love your assumption that those with a low income are necessarily less ambitious or less intelligent. You are quite a paragon of hatefulness."
I say this is the absolute truth statistically. I'm sure you can find rhodes scholars who live fastidiously and you can find idiots who inherited a lot of money from their family, but when taken as a whole, there is a direct correlation.
When I was poor, It was I was more concerned about just how much beer I was going to drink that night than going to work the next day. I DO love that Molson Canadian SO...
Now I work more, drink less, have more money, and am more ambitious. That's my anecdotal evidence.
Is it hateful speach to say something that is probably rock-solid statistically?

"The funny thing is, I thought that's what the control board is doing - the union crushing the elected officials really couldn't do unless they were suicidal."
Yes. Yes. Yes. The problem is, there is so much civil service per capita in the region, that a lot of the voters are civil service or are related to someone who is. To run government responsibly in an envronment like that is impossible. When Washington DC was "control boarded" in 95, 1 out of 7 people were employed by the city. Responsible government was impossible there as well. I knew this would happen 4 years ago, after giambras failed library consolidation thing.

"Buffalo's problem is bad planning. "
Buffalo's problem is bad management.

" Had the teachers' contract been honored, things would have been a lot better."
That contract should have never been agreed to in the first place. The leaders who signed it should go to prison for fraud as a cautionary tale to others who spend money that doesn't exist. They should have had the courage to say "NO" and deal with a strike, or whatever. Yes, that was total crap on both sides.


What stikes me as funny is why Buffalo tries to figure this out on it's own. Take a cross section of what the best cities are doing, and COPY it. Their form of govt, labor structure, elected offices, what have you. What you have now hasn't worked in 30 years - time to throw it out.

[WNYresident]

Seth,

I dont know what a reasonable pay is. I know $5.75 is impossible to live on and thats why those jobs are out there for the people that can use the extra money.

I also have little issue with some of the pay unionites recieve but, you have the people that will milk the system to the bitter end. That is what milks the system. That milking over all kills the region.

I have no issue with people making money but a union can't expect all union members to be upper middle class just because. "Just because" is not a reason nor is time at job worked a reason for a pay raise. Just because someone works 20 years at one job doesn't make that job more valuable, the employee may be more valuable and that's why the pay of increase happens.

Everything is out of balance and that's why this area WNY can't survive. Each burb will have thier bubble pop as people migrate to "Better" areas. Their labor contracts will bite them in the ass as they have in buffalo. All areas get older the longer anyone waits.

We should of been building inwards and only out wards when the city needed the space. Each time we put something farther out from the core more people move farther. We spread everything outwards, everyone left the core that could and presto... we have WNY as it is now.

I still think the people in the burbs (including myself) are stupid for letting what is happening in the burbs happen. Patronage, politics, wasteful green space usage is just as bad as it is in Buffalo. We are blind to it to a point seeing we can still afford thier wasteful criminal rape of the tax base.

I really don't want the control board to stop at Buffalo. WNY is a region that will need to compete against other regions.

We need to start planning to win, not plan how to make our politicains and local unions happy.

[WNYresident]

There is some truth to the value of a product depending on the maker.

I personally know people that no matter how much they would be paid thier work effort is lame. Then there are others without education that can't expect to make what educated people make. That doesn't mean to the politicians should take what the educated person earns and balance out what the uneducated person makes.

It pulls the ambition from the educated people to work harder while making the recievers of the aid less likely to want to succeed.

[Curmudgeon]

Well said! That's the definition of a "meritocracy". Buffalo now has a "fraternalocracy" (I just made that up) where you join an organization (union, civil service, "local" producers, minority business) and then demand more than you deserve based on what your "fraternity" can extract from the larger population around it. It's kind of a haphazard, schizophrenic form of socialism/communism.
"From each according to the terms of the contract,
To each according to the arbitrated settlement".
it's a breeding ground for corruption, inefficiency, and laziness.

[Unregistered]

Just a response to a piece earlier in this thread.....If you doubt Buffalo has an expenditure problem, than you should go back to the college you went to and request a refund as it is obviously owed to you.

I saw a note on a Buffalo related Message board recently that an individaul with a $50,000 home in the city of Buffalo pays $2100 a year in property taxes.

For those of you who have not traveled around and lived other places, let me state for you that firgures like that are absolutely staggering in comparisson elsewhere, they are beyond ridiculous, confiscatory or insulting, taxation like that is blatant robbery.

And to consider the terrible schools, govenment adn services and to think the kind of business/growth atmosphere there provides a Buffalo Resident with far lower career opportunities and skills than elsewhere, it is a wonder anyone stays.

And if you think those taxation numbers are ghastly, consider tht the liberal tax-spend-elect system in NYS that supports this malarchy views busines as a cash cow to drain and is far worse on them in terms of taxes, fees and over regulation.

Yes the region has a bad expenditure problem, and obviously has no handle on what got them this far. Why do I have a home in Colorado with 4 times the price of teh one example listed above and my property taxes are less than half those cited above, yet I have great police and schoiols, good roads and money to improve roads, rec facilites, bikeways....you name it?

Because Government does not overspend and raise taxes to outrageous levels and chase all those who produce and pay taxes away......the tax burden is not divided amongst a shrinking pool of producers.

The problem in WNY is that for decades, government largess adn spending programs have grown, while the cost of doing business there escalated, driving out the tax base and increasing the burden on those who remain.

Anyone who wants to counter this fact of reality can do so but Buffalo NY is living proof of what over taxation of the private sector does to an area. Deny it all you want but WNY has been destroyed because of this type of reasoning and policy.

[Curmudgeon]

holy cow! This guy sees the truth!
Thank you for your astute observations. I couldn't have said it any better myself, although I do try.