State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s audit claiming that New York sends more money to Washington than we get back, resulting in our being shortchanged, is nothing new.
DiNapoli continues to play from the same old liberal Democratic playbook.
Gov. Cuomo, Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand, New York City Mayor de Blasio along with most of our Congress members continue to blame Washington for all of our problems just like their political ancestors from past decades.
All have an insatiable appetite for more federal assistance with no concern about increasing the confiscatory level of taxation to generate the revenues along with increasing long-term borrowing to pay for this or how the billions of dollars are spent. They believe throwing more taxpayer dollars at problems will solve all of society’s ills.
Moving tax dollars from Albany to Washington redistributes the wealth from the haves to the have-nots.
The late Sen. Moynihan decades ago documented how New Yorkers sent more money to Washington than we get back. Many other states could make the same argument.
This imbalance also holds true in the distribution of state aid from Albany to the 62 counties of New York. You could take this analysis down to every town, village and local census tract.
Since this imbalance will never change, we would be better off leaving tax levies at local levels of government. There will be significant savings in administrative costs and a greater percentage of locally generated revenues remaining in our communities.
Generating, keeping and spending local funds in your communities also allows greater accountability and oversight by public officials and citizens from the same neighborhoods.
The real question is how Albany manages the billions of dollars already received from Washington every year.
Federal support for New York has remained consistent and growing. It has actually increased over past decades. When a crisis occurred, be it 9/11 in 2001 or Super Storm Sandy in 2012, Washington was there for us.
Additional billions in federal assistance above and beyond yearly formula allocations were provided. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided billions more. Most federal transportation grants require a 20 percent hard cash local share.
In many cases, Uncle Sam accepted toll credits instead of hard cash for the local share. This saved the Metropolitan Transportation Authority $1 billion in the previous 2010-2014 Five Year Capital Program. The MTA will save even more under the ongoing $32 billion 2015 – 2019 Five Year Capital Program.
Does Albany submit grant applications on time? Are current federally funded programs being completed on time and within budget? Is there any waste, fraud or abuse for expenditures of any taxpayers dollars?
Has state Comptroller DiNapoli conducted audits of each respective state agency and authority to see if they are doing a good job managing federal aid programs?
It is difficult to convince Washington for more money when Uncle Sam faces annual short-term deficits of close to $1 trillion dollars and long-term national debt of $21 trillion dollars!
We should learn from past mistakes and attempt to reduce both borrowing and long-term debt instead of allowing them to grow yearly. The combined New York City, New York State and federal debt is already over $21 trillion dollars and growing. This inheritance could bankrupt future generations.
Government at all levels needs to do a better job with the billions in taxpayer-generated revenues already available, rather than pick the pockets of taxpayers for even more.
It is time for a return to pay-as-you-go budgeting; means testing for all government assistance programs; real balanced budgets without smoke and mirrors; stop hiding spending under so-called independent authorities whose budgets are offline with little oversight by both the comptroller and state Legislature along with actual surpluses and down payments to reduce long-term debt for all levels of government. How ironic that after winning the Cold War against the Evil Empire of Communism, it may be mismanagement of our economy that defeats us in the end.
Unless we change our ways, America is on the road to losing our status as the World’s number one superpower. Just like mighty ancient Rome before the collapse, we are going down the path to becoming the world’s super debtor.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
