It was Governor Cuomo’s father, Mario, who famously declared that you “campaign in poetry, but govern in prose.” Part of the poetry of the campaign was the usual rhetoric around job creation—Candidate Cuomo pledged to focus the resources and energy of the State of New York on the economy, particularly Upstate.
The Regional Economic Development Councils is the vehicle by which Governor Cuomo is translating that bit of campaign poetry into energetic prose. The concept comes partly from Cuomo’s tenure at HUD, partly from a similar venture launched by the first Governor Cuomo in the late 1980s. The concept has merit—by appointing key leaders to ten councils across NYS, he is engaging the state’s leadership in a manner that is largely unprecedented. With Lt Governor Bob Duffy as the chair of every council, he has assured both that council members participate and that the state agency representatives show up and provide support. Read more »
Economists love taxes. At least, we love the right kind of taxes, those that discourage bad actions and encourage good ones. Tobacco taxes, for example, make smoking a habit that hurts your pocketbook as well as your lungs. Evidence suggests that teens smoke less just because it has become so darned expensive. Hear, hear!
A “carbon tax” is one of the good taxes. If you accept any one of the following propositions – a)human activity has precipitated global warming, b)human activity hasn’t done so in the past, but it might in the future and this would be a bad thing, OR c) fossil fuel imports put money in the pockets of unstable nations and the world would be a safer place if we used less – then you should support a carbon tax. (If you don’t accept any of the above conditions, it is time to turn the page.)
We policy wonks like to believe that good ideas win in the end. That right makes might. That if we only got a chance to convince-oh, Barack Obama or John Boehner or Tom Richards or Maggie Brooks-then the right idea would win the day.
Think again. Truth to tell, ideas are powerful only when wielded effectively. It’s effective political action that shapes government, thus society. Read more »
Is college worth the money? This is a seasonal debate, prompted by parades of caps & gowns and the agonizing, “So what do I do now?” from grads burdened with big loans but tiny incomes.
Some facts about college cost are hard to nail down: One source (The College Board) reports that inflation-adjusted “net tuition”—the posted price less grants (called “discounts” in retail)—rose 47% for private four-year institutions from 95-96 to 07-08; for public institutions, the price increase was 34%. Yet another source (The College Board) reports that net tuition & fees actually fell 14% for public institutions and rose a relatively modest 17% for private four-year colleges and universities—over the same period. Read more »
I’ve had “one person, one vote” (OK, “one MAN, one vote”) drummed into my head since the 4th grade. Yet this didn’t apply to many legislative elections until the mid 1960s. Congressional seats, while allocated to states according to population, were distributed within the states many different ways. Only in a series of decisions handed down between 1962 and 1964 did the Supreme Court declare that Congressional and state legislative districts had to contain roughly the same number of residents, basing its decision on the “Equal Protection Clause” of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Read more »
Last week I wrote about our encounter with a timeshare sales pitch from Diamond Resorts International (DRI) in beautiful Lake Tahoe (see below). Here’s the bottom line: The offer price for the timeshare was, effectively, between $420 to $642 per night. I rented the unit for $85 per night from a broker. Fairness Doctrine Caveat: Clearly there are ways to cut this price. First, I suspect that if I had managed to avoid gasping audibly at the price and been able instead to say something like, “Gee, I’d love to buy, but I’m thinking about Marriott instead,” the price would have come down. I’m not that good an actor. Second, there are angles to be played with timeshares. If you book closer to your planned visit (thus with less certainty of getting your first choice), our salesman said that the point requirement is cut in half (Oooh! Only 2 ½ times what I actually paid!). And they were going to throw in a couple of weeks someplace-or-other for free. And probably a microwave oven or a set of grill tools.
I can imagine that some timeshares could make sense for some people. A lot depends on what you usually pay and where you like to visit. And owning a timeshare ensures that you’ll keep taking those vacations, if you are looking for an excuse. Read more »
My wife and I spent a week in Lake Tahoe recently. Always looking for affordable accommodations, we rented a lovely 1 bedroom unit for an excellent price—right on the south shore of the Lake.
The complex is owned by Diamond Resorts International (DRI), a company whose principal business is managing timeshare resorts. Our rental was arranged through a broker who books timeshares on behalf of owners who can’t use their “points” and are looking to get cash back.
When we checked in, we were invited to attend an information session on VACATION OWNERSHIP! Eager to learn more, I signed us up. Read more »
Confronted by a Regents study declaring that only 5 percent of Rochester City School District graduates are college-ready, Jean-Claude Brizard declares the findings “terrifying.”
One of Brizard’s best qualities is his persistent willingness to look the facts in the face. Too often our education leadership—the district administration and the Board of Education—has been unwilling to state the obvious. It is a natural reaction: The task is herculean. The need is desperate. The consequences of failure are tragic. Read more »
If you read this column regularly, you’ve heard about my mother’s bad back. The pain can be debilitating. She worries that she’ll be confined to a wheelchair if it gets worse and lose her independence. Mom gets along quite nicely on her own for the moment, however. I was pleased to see that she was still eager to play Scrabble when we visited at Christmas. She lost—but only by two points to my son, a grad student in Physics. I didn’t play, figuring I’d avoid the indignity of being whipped by one or the other.
She’s rejected spine surgery before, but revisited the issue with a different surgeon. She emailed his conclusion that “because I am in such good physical condition at the age of 85, I will probably live until I am 100 – so don’t spend your inheritance yet! Surgery would involve two rods, 14 screws, and a steel plate. I would have about four days of pain and then feel better the rest of my life.” Read more »
I was transfixed by the recent riots in France over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. All the more striking was the participation of high school students in the riots. That, more than anything else, convinced me that France was in trouble.
My suspicions about the French were confirmed after I consulted the OECD PISA scores (that’s the Program for International Student Assessment from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). In the percentage of students performing at an advanced level in mathematics, France ranked 20th, barely ahead of Estonia and way behind educational powerhouses like, oh, the Czech Republic and Liechtenstein. Clearly, these poor young people can’t do the simple math of retirement. If their parents and grandparents are going to continue to retire at the cushy age of 60, the younger generation’s taxes are going to go through the roof.
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It was Governor Cuomo’s father, Mario, who famously declared that you “campaign in poetry, but govern in prose.” Part of the poetry of the campaign was the usual rhetoric around job creation—Candidate Cuomo pledged to focus the resources and energy of the State of New York on the economy, particularly Upstate.
