Whine to the next-highest guy: now that’s leadership. The man purportedly in charge can always hope the man in the next-biggest office isn’t quite as incompetent, although there’s always the horror of getting to the top and realize there’s nobody else to lobby.
At least hurricanes leave. By comparison, the suffering inflicted by progressive leaders remains for as long as enough voters think autocracy doesn’t need to mean proficiency. A state that spends an astounding fortune of impounded funds on every frivolous extension of power imaginable didn’t squirrel away enough for its true function. So, the chief panhandler is off to engage in an executive’s most important task, namely making everyone else pay for one area’s prodigal nature:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited the White House Monday on the first stop of a D.C. visit seeking federal aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is finalizing a massive request to Congress for emergency federal aid for New York, New Jersey and other East Coast states hit by the storm.
By definition, emergency aid shouldn’t take over a month to arrive. But this government specializes in diluting the dictionary. The unbelievable sum he seeks is just the start:
New York and New Jersey have requested $79 billion for rebuilding and mitigation projects, but the price tag is certain to go higher as other states also assess the damage.
Estimate high: he may as well ask for nine figures. It’s not like it’s his money. For inspiration, a lower-ranking incompetent quasi-tyrant is whining in Washington instead of helping his constituents:
Last week New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a similar round of visits, meeting with top House and Senate appropriators as well as House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Why doesn’t New York City’s Bonaparte just ban storms? Residents reward absolute fecklessness, then wonder why the state is a disaster area even when storms aren’t landing:
Meanwhile, New York voters gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo high marks for his response to Superstorm Sandy, a poll Monday found.
Sixty-seven percent of voters said Cuomo has done an excellent or good job dealing with the devastating Oct. 29 storm, the Siena College poll said.
Wearing a jacket while surveying damage used to represent leadership. Now, it’s replaced it, and voters have accepted posing as the real deal. Their willingness to settle for the gestures without the actions sadly explains why they agree with him even when he’s outside his usual realm of ignorance:
Residents agreed with Cuomo’s assessment that climate change is real. By a 69-24 percent margin, voters said recent severe storms were a result of climate change. Cuomo has warned that New York, particularly along the coastline, needs to rebuild to take into account the likelihood of future severe storms because of climate change.
Hurricanes are a new phenomenon, of course, spurred by people using air conditioning and blenders. An astounding percentage of suckers concur with nonsensical pronouncements about why natural catastrophes are our fault, a number which presumably doesn’t include those who can’t answer pollsters since they are still without basic services:
Cuomo has received high approval ratings generally in polls by Siena and other polling institutes. A Siena poll last month found Cuomo with a 67 percent approval rating.
During the storm, Cuomo held daily press briefings and toured ravaged communities, including being in lower Manhattan during the height of the storm. He has criticized power companies for their response and has threatened to remove their state licenses if they didn’t respond adequately to customers’ needs.
Yeah, talking to the press and tying up the roads while looking at all the broken crap really helped devastated residents. And Cuomo threatening those he decided didn’t respond properly is from a psychology textbook’s section on projection. Mockers of anyone who is excessively prepared for potential emergencies invariably beg shamelessly when they are exposed as feeble by events.
A state dedicated to governmental infiltration of every bit of your day is missing in action when its actually needed. Cuomo’s supreme impotence is embodied how he needs to make demands from Washington despite what a tax hole Albany remains. There’s bad news if he thinks there’s someone else to bail him out if he, pray for us, makes it to that top office.
Voters backing whichever candidates promise the most junk paid for by said voters can’t ever lead to financial ruin. However, it can provoke crankiness if an otherwise spotlessly efficient government is tardy about handing out goodies. Citizens who have been turned into perpetual adolescents never ask how Dad earns his money as long as they get their allowance on time.
New York’s politicians are ready to cause an economic disaster once they’re done coping with a natural one. The fact they’re still cleaning up after a hurricane a month after it inflicted havoc doesn’t speak well for proficiency in any arena. Sandra Lee’s addled boy toy should develop a plan to clear the rubble left by a pre-Halloween storm by Christmas before trying to develop the economy:
It’s been almost one year since NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo made his highly heralded “Billion to Buffalo” pledge, announcing his commitment of one billion dollars in state incentives toward economic development efforts in Western New York.
Shortly thereafter, Cuomo appointed a Regional Economic Development Council to formulate a working plan to best utilize the incentives the state is poised to offer.
With a name like Regional Economic Development Council, it can’t fail. If you think the government doesn’t always do what it claims it will, then you should call for a law that makes politicians keep promises.
A pinky swear might keep bureaucrats who are outside the realm of accountability from wasting money on stupid silliness. But the panel’s very existence doesn’t bode well, considering the government’s cruelly ironic history of restraining the development of regional economies:
That council, working through Lt. Governor Bob Duffy, had hoped the governor himself would be reviewing the fruits of its labor by now.
However Duffy, during a visit to Buffalo on Monday, said the Governor has been too occupied with the aftermath of super storm Sandy and its devastating impact on the state to turn his full attention to the work of the council, so their unveiling of the first phase of what they have now dubbed “Buffalo Investment Development Plan.”
They have a plan? Well, that changes everything. The government’s real role won’t get in the way of investing money better than the people who earned it could. A decades-long track record of harmful plans just means they got the bad ideas out of the way:
“A lot of great work has been done on that…but in all honesty one of the biggest holdups for the state right now is all the tragedy in New York City and New Jersey with the storm. I think that has really pushed a lot back in terms of how we’ve done business,” Duffy told WGRZ-TV.
“In a crisis like that everything else has to take a back seat,” concurred Empire State Development Regional President Sam Hoyt, whose agency has also been working with the Regional Economic development Council on its plan.
The only thing worse than letting scummy sex machine Hoyt decide how our money is spent is letting a liberal group that lamely attempts to maintain a facade of evenness do so. By coincidence, both spenders are unelected, as New York’s politicians are too lazy to waste what they’ve taken. Outsourcing is only bad if a company does it to stay profitable:
Through consultation with the Brookings Institute, the council has identified industry sectors with the highest potential growth in our region.
These would include, among others, health care and health sciences such as those involved at the Buffalo Niagara Medical campus.
The campus’s benefits appear healthy, but the illness rots from within. Wasters of other people’s money will continue wondering why it’s taken so long for even the faintest signs of a pulse to appear downtown; they’re too busy devising state-level schematics instead of running successful businesses to ascertain the reason.
Companies can’t invest on their own money for some reason, so the area is left trying to get back to zero. Maybe other people will come here and spend us into economic paradise, or at least help us try to break even after even more state spending:
Tourism is another sector in focus by the council, and the plan, according to sources , focuses on taking advantage of our Buffalo’s border status for potential investment by Canadian firms.
Locations that would benefit from tourism apparently can’t fund themselves. Anything that could ever potentially bring greater benefit has to be sponsored by the state. A private business is not to be considered as trustworthy as an oh so efficiently impartial ruling apparatus:
Duffy says the state faces tight fiscal times, but doesn’t think Cuomo will have to back out of any commitments made to Western New York.
Please back out. We’ll forgive the commitment-breaking if it keeps the fragile remnants of a smashed economy intact. Our leaders will naturally turn down a chance to break the routine of counterproductive meddling. They couldn’t reassign funds if they stopped bothering us, and they like to keep busy.
Bleeding wallets dry is the only skill New York’s politicians have. It’s not as if they’re supposed to be good at helping those in immediately genuine need or anything. Like Staten Island, the government has been tremendously paralyzed by a hurricane. The difference is the latter doesn’t have the excuse of massive flooding and gusts topping 100 miles per hour.
Albany has spent a month failing at disaster relief. Now, it would like you to believe it will be proficient at something entirely out of its domain. While billion dollars that remains in taxpayers’ hands sounds less impressive than the governor re-bestowing it, keeping the money in private hands to begin with would actually help. Based on the government’s appalling performance after the hurricane, it’s clear actual help isn’t their concern.
Nothing ever changing is fine if you’re a Yankees fan or nuclear silo guard. But not everyone gets to enjoy the inertia of steady success or avoidance of trouble. Instead, some endure perpetual languor even though they could choose vigor. Take New York voters who woefully elected to stay the same, as upheaval might cause happiness and prosperity along with other apparently undesirably pleasant effects.
For one, New Yorkers rewarded the junior senator for being part of a crew that refuses to pass a budget, as it’s thus obviously not that august body’s fault that we’re in debt we are unable to pay back because we’re holding our place in the unemployment queue. Kirsten Gillibrand didn’t need to waste money on ads but of course did in classic Democratic style. The one possibility more disheartening than New Yorkers again picking Flick despite her record as a depressingly predictable liberal is that they went with her because of it.
Lower legislators are nearly as uniformly Democratic in the alleged Empire State as the more deliberative half. The state that lost two seats also lost two Republicans in an example of why they’ll lose even more after 2020. Excessive spending by a nosy government has made life in New York nearly unbearable, so the state’s dwellers figure everyone nationally might as well have to be as miserable as we are.
The semi-good news involves the removal of one bad news representative. The only thing worse than an undesirable candidate who last threw away his county-level office is Kathy Hochul. Chris Collins might not be the ideal embodiment of small-government principles or big-principled leaders.
But voters had enough shameless nonsense from Hochul, namely how she continued to frighten seniors about Republicans trying to lower premiums by feeding them to federally-subsidized wolves. Here’s wishing she enjoyed her handful of minutes as another Washington tourist.
Nationally, aspiring Democratic executives will continue to take New York’s electoral votes for granted. We should at least consider flirting with another suitor, unless we want this state to be permanently engaged to statism.
Getting to avoid presidential political commercials isn’t worth the automatic electoral vote dispensation. There are fewer of them, anyway, as New York sees its effect on presidential elections dwindle due to more residents growing weary of the poverty caused by wealth transfers enough to price homes in Red States.
Results of uniform rule by the party of gargantuan government are depressingly unsurprising. For one, the state’s executive is way smarter than you despite appearances. The meteorology skills Andrew Cuomo learned at law school allowed him to proclaim that Hurricane Sandy was connected to climate change, as the world never experienced bad storms before the internal combustion engine’s invention.
Cuomo is only incompetent because he doesn’t have enough power. His bizarre connection of a hurricane’s existence to human activity is only less egregious by comparison to how he blamed private ownership for post-Sandy troubles. As with how the person who inflated the mortgage bubble as Housing and Urban Development Secretary says we need more government to fix the economy, Kid Cuomo is proficient at blaming everyone for the problems he initiated other than himself.
Meanwhile, parts of Staten Island still resemble a Third World nation as the governor proclaims his lust for using a natural disaster to increase the state’s reach. Maybe he should work on the fundamentals before he signs with an agent. The government can do everything, except for how it can’t even perform its most necessary functions. They constantly screw up on both the varsity and intramural levels, and it’s the fans who suffer.
There’s little for which to cheer. For now, liberalism is so prevalent in New York that embarrassed locals must explain how a local rag which is biased beyond the point of parody neither shapes nor reflects local opinions. Keep listening to The Buffalo News, and we’ll be swapping electoral votes with North Dakota after just a few censuses. Also, keep supporting Obama, and wonder why you have to close your facility despite your support of his most radical notions.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Voters are so accustomed to omnipresent blight that they don’t realize they can select otherwise. The state and perhaps the nation will turn around once New Yorkers learn it’s acceptable to stop using bricks to hit themselves in their heads. Be certain that Albany paid too much for said bricks.
How much of every dollar placed in an Empire State stripper’s G-string ends up in Albany’s granny panties? The government turns your tips to New York’s finest fishnet-clad ladies into change so they may fund a bloated welfare apparatus for millions and a possible stadium for a billionaire. Lady friction specialists subsidize those who want to avoid paying for their own form of lap dances.
New York’s highest court is letting other grabby state employees confirm Ronald Reagan’s worst suspicions about the government. Specifically if it moves, tax it, even if said movement takes the form of the appealingly gyrating rump of a coed improbably named Cinnamon:
A very divided New York Court of Appeals has ruled that lap dances are not art and don’t promote culture and are therefore subject to state sales taxes.
If you’re liking New York’s scenery, better get out the greenery. Blame snobby judges who think culture means ladies must keep on their tops:
The court split 4-3, with the dissenting judges saying there’s no distinction in state law between “highbrow dance and lowbrow dance,” so the case raises “significant constitutional problems.”
The lawsuit was filed by Nite Moves in suburban Albany, which was arguing fees for admission to the strip club and for private dances are exempt from sales taxes.
We still applaud your defiant move, Nite Moves. Those who experience the misfortune of finding themselves in Albany have a new place to hang out, especially if Cheyenne and Passion are dancing that night. Sadly, patronizing the heroic establishment might mean crossing paths with the state-employed drones who will never stop bossing you around even if you didn’t vote for them.
As for wholly unelected busybodies, the state’s highest-ranking judges have set forth a precedent of making ridiculous assertions about how only troupes with less revealing costumes should be permitted to dance away from the taxman:
The court majority said taxes apply to many entertainment venues, such as amusement parks and sporting events. It ruled the club has failed to prove it qualifies for the exemption for “dramatic or musical arts performances” that was adopted by the Legislature “with the evident purpose of promoting cultural and artistic performances in local communities.”
The majority reached similar conclusions about admission fees to watch dances done onstage around a pole, as well as for lap dances or private dances.
The smirk that accompanies picturing judges contemplating the distinctions involving performers using poles doesn’t outweigh the meddlesome outcome. Maybe they ruled poorly because they were disgruntled about not receiving expecting a tip. Regardless, one doesn’t have to patronize the sort of place where employees each wear a garment, singular, to think that the government’s dance moves are unsurprisingly lacking in titillation:
The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has said all along the exemption didn’t qualify in this situation, spokesman Cary Ziter said. “We’re pleased with this decision, because it gives similar businesses clear guidance on the issue of sales tax when it comes to live exotic dance establishments.”
Way to kill fun, State Department of Taxation and Finance. Imposing on a good time is nothing new for New York. If you do manage to scrape together enough to have a bit of a blast, your bureaucrats get their share. Their contribution to fun is mandating pasty size.
The tantalizingly graceful night-shift workers are just trying to make a buck at a time. The still-amusing cliché about supporting single moms is as true as the businesslike nature of the lap-dancing transaction, as the comely ladies admirably work in close proximity to lonely male suckers instead of seeking benefits. Naturally, they’re punished for joining the entertainment industry. They’re providing a service to very interested clientele, and the state feels it must wedge between worker and customer to get its cut of supply and demand in stimulating action.
New York could avoid making ludicrous value judgments by not taxing any dancing at all, or any normal action, for that matter. The ensuing economic activity brought by freeing people to move without being billed for it will far overcome any disruption in services; in fact, people will start to see that their lives are just fine without the state’s intervention. Naturally, the latter entity can’t allow citizens to see how useless it is.
At least most dancers act semi-decently. Unlike at strip clubs, the government will screw you every time. Only your rulers are allowed to engage in such practices. They offer none of the fun and all of the unfulfilled frustration. Anyone as grabby as this state’s workers would have been bounced from a respectable gentleman’s club before the buffet opened.
Drilling’s fun just for the heck of it. Getting to play with adult-sized Tonka vehicles is a blast, what with all the engine rumbling and displaced dirt. Putting massive things where they once weren’t only grows in fun as the sandbox gets larger.
But we don’t need to breach the crust just to show the Earth who’s boss. We can fuel much of the stuff we’ve built on the surface with what’s a few stories down, as New York’s lethargy can be overcome by underground vitality:
A new industry report anticipates natural gas production from the Marcellus Shale will climb ever higher.
In their latest research, analysts from GlobalData, a London-based firm, predict that gross production from one of the country’s fastest growing plays is set to reach 4.8 billions of cubic feet equivalent (bcfe) in 2015 before finally stabilizing in 2020 at 7,7 bcfe.
The technical term is “a lot.” On a related note, there are a lot of states that could better their economic situations if only they look downward:
The natural gas-rich shale formation that runs through New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. According to GlobalData, gross production from the play exploded from 80.2 bcfe in 2009 to 1,1 bcfe in 2011.
There is boundless energy underfoot that can be accessed through an amazing technique whose advantages improve our lives at a discount. Naturally, it is opposed by pro-science people who promote hysterical unsubstantiated rumors in lieu of research:
Hydraulic fracturing, or “hydrofracking”, is a process that has sparked controversy across the world, due to potential risks including ground water contamination and the compromise of air quality.
The Marcellus Shale runs through New York and Pennsylvania, amongst other states, and while numerous wells have been drilled across the latter, opposition from the public and some political figures in New York led to the initiation of a drilling moratorium in November 2010 — a freeze on fracking that currently remains in place.
Why let our neighbors have all the jobs and energy? If they start pulling energy from the dirt and New York doesn’t, only a rather imposing fence above ground will keep eager potential employees from following the fracking out of state. For now, the Keystone State is also the empire of natural gas acquisition:
Drilling activity in the Marcellus Shale mainly takes place in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources the number of drilling permits issued there stood at 11,772 as of March 9, 2012.
What would be different between the states aside from oppressive politicians that have decided that the risks of having a civilization aren’t worth it? One ruling entity is slowing down progress without a case in what can best be classified as an embodiment of government in action:
Hydrofracking has come under fire for environmental and safety concerns, landowners, oil and gas companies and related businesses wait as New York State Department of Environmental Conservation culls through tens of thousands of public comments before issuing hydraulic fracturing permits. The DEC review is expected to be complete by year-end.
It’s so nice that they consider letting people obtain a product that directly and indirectly combats unemployment while literally fueling our lives. Some economic progress is bigger than elections, as how energy-packed North Dakota defies Obamanomics by bringing it someplace more useful than under rocks.
The government does have a role; sadly, it’s usually perversely manifested in the form of screwing up opportunities. Regulations should serve as a framework for punishment in cases of accidents or carelessness, not an obstacle to ever getting the drills started.
Absence of intervention remains the state’s best hope. The right office holders will not be a pain to those trying to implement progress, as it takes bold leaders to stand still. Conversely, the surest way to face dire consequences life is to try living life without them. First comes frequent brownouts.
Voters must accept that they’re legally adults by virtue of being able to cast ballots for candidates who recognize that everything involves tradeoffs. We can keep the power going by ignoring risible claims that fracking will cause the Earth to shake and your water to ignite. Such truther-type beliefs are the domain of holders who choose to reside in the dark, which is where they belong if they want the benefits of a comfortable lifestyle without permitting digging for juice.
Doing something properly will convince more people than telling people you’re doing something properly. The downside is that actual performance is hard.
There is bound to be more effort exerted in accomplishment than bragging about it, and sweat is as icky as a taxed brain. With not overusing one’s mind in mind, shrewdly shifty people may even try boasting about a successful endeavor that never occurred, as hollow words might convince enough marks if they’re delivered with as much amoral bravado that can be mustered.
Then again, the scheme might be tricky to enact if the shyster’s reputation has already been sullied beyond repair. To wit, New York has to convince skeptics that its confines are welcoming to merchants despite things like facts and the news. This dead-last state needs to tax residents mercilessly for the crime of residing within it, or else it wouldn’t be able to afford things like programs that advertise how high taxes don’t hurt those who dare to pursue profits:
In the midst of a $50 million campaign to change its business image, New York comes up last in a state-by-state ranking by the Tax Foundation.
In 2012, the Washing, D.C.-based non-partisan tax research group ranked New York 49th and New Jersey 50th. This year, the state’s flip-flopped those positions. The entire ranking can be found here.
Below Jersey: we can’t sink lower. Except for the miserable economy and return on results, all the levies have been one heck of an investment:
“Despite moderate corporate taxes, New York scores at the bottom this year by having the worst individual income tax, the sixth-worst unemployment insurance taxes, and the sixth-worst property taxes.
Moderate corporate taxes? How did that happen? Let’s stick it to those thieving bastards who bring nothing more than products, services, and jobs. We should make Wall Street pay for their output, namely keep this capsizing state afloat, because companies totally won’t bail if their rates raise. It’s too bad that poorly-performing states don’t share common miserable characteristics so we can determine what’s going wrong, aside from universally oppressive financial burdens:
The states in the bottom 10 suffer from the same afflictions: complex, non-neutral taxes with comparatively high rates,” the Tax Foundation said.
Simple can’t work. Seeing the world in black and white terms is for cavemen who don’t understand the sophistication of a bloated monopoly seizing what people earned so it can be spent on big and important projects instead of things the earners would like to buy. That’s why all that federal spending reduced both debt and unemployment, right?
What this state really needs is to blow through even more tax collections on an ad campaign explaining why all the money they take doesn’t hurt the economy. On the other hand, maybe a diminished star who’s coasting on reputation isn’t the best spokesman for a state facing similar circumstances:
In June, New York kicked off a media campaign, “The New New York Works For Business,” enlisting celebrity endorsers such as Robert DeNiro.
While the inadvertently amusing ads offer a reminder that Mister De Niro is perhaps a tad overrated, he doesn’t have much to work with considering the product he’s pitching. On the other hand, he took the checks, so he can thank New York’s taxpayers with complimentary sake at Nobu.
Residents can and should feel glad that Albany doesn’t skunk everything. We can all be thankful for good economic news, especially when it comes despite the civilization-reversing efforts of brutally childish environmentalists who apparently are uninterested in why the light switch works. Regardless, such promising developments remain exceptions and are newsworthy precisely as a result of their rarity.
It’s not as if there’s a lack of room for improvement. People have been noticing for the past few decades that upstate cities are not precisely teeming with commercial activity.
Every entrepreneur that dares plant seeds in the Empire State is trying to force blooming in a contaminated environment. Now, there’s just more evidence that the topsoil is the nation’s most toxic. The only thing worse than the price of New York’s onerous taxes is the cost.
Harbor Ill Will
You may have noticed if you’ve observed the world at any point between the dawn of time and now that those working on the public’s behalf aren’t quite good at managing assets. And why would they be? It’s not their property, so they have no interest in preventing spoiling. You stop mowing the lawn when you realize the neighbors won’t judge you personally.
The eternal trend of rewarding collective property’s unimpressive stewards will continue. You can buy what should be a prime slice of Buffalo land for the cost of a medium Tim Hortons coffee but not a dozen donuts if you happen to be a woefully inefficient government agency. For one congressman, it’s all about the Jeffersons, or rather, a single Jefferson:
The real estate is criminally underdeveloped and also owned by the government in a Powerball-winning level of completely random coincidence. It would be much better to let an entirely different bureaucratic entity run the ground into the ground:
Life is easy when your benchmark is zero. Speaking of low standards, the suggested two-buck sale price reflects the financial acumen of someone whose version of helping the economy was embodied by voting to waste nearly a trillion dollars to increase unemployment. You can never, ever sell something for more than which you paid, as it’s unfair and would also of course mean the world would run out of money:
Repairing something that’s mostly dirt? Leave it to the NFTA to need so much money to fix so little. The group that let the desirable property languish is deeply offended that anyone noticed the shoddy job they did:
The most adult response possible to questions about which which municipality or agency would get to run it is “Who the [swear] cares?” The discussion should be about which person or company should be allowed to turn the desolate parcel into something useful. But Democrats can’t stand for some private owner who would probably just want to frack for pollution and shoot trespassers. It’s far better to let a different governmental section properly manage uselessness.
If Higgins seems like he’s oblivious to how business works because he got a degree in political science before spending his adult life in elected office, it’s because that’s what he’s done. While never running a business is one thing, not respecting business is problem.
For someone who tries to play a moderate, it’s odd that he invariably votes how Nancy Pelosi wants. Back at home, the sadly predictable Higgins will blather about which dully incompetent agency should get to preside over continued nothingness.
Higgins could suggest auctioning the property to gain both development and revenue while relieving the present owners of a burden they obviously can’t handle. Instead, he’ll tacitly proclaim that an area of his district is almost worthless. Asking for a third dollar would be greedy.