income inequality is all the rage right now among Democrats—from President Obama on down—thanks to de Blasio’s landslide victory in the November general election. Progressive advocates are hoping to seize this moment, pushing for action in Albany on everything from creating a public campaign finance system and more equitable state tax structure to passing the DREAM Act and marijuana reform. Cuomo is on board with some, but not all, of those agenda items. But he can ill afford to further anger the left,
which is already upset by his fiscally conservative agenda and refusal to intervene in the state Senate power struggle, as he begins a re-election year and considers a potential presidential run in 2016. “If the governor thought it through, he doesn’t need de Blasio personifying a cold war with the liberal wing of the party,” said Gyory. “At this point, the mayor is second only to [Massachusetts Sen.] Elizabeth Warren nationally as the symbol of resurgent progressivism.” But Catalfamo thinks de Blasio and
Cuomo will be able to navigate their differences, at least in the short term, insisting they have “more ideologically in common than maybe people perceive.” “They’re both smart politicians who will try to work together and give each other the wins they need and find a way home,” Catalfamo continued. “That will be complicated by external forces—a liberal City Council, the Legislature, a Speaker looking to reassert himself. It’s a neat challenge.”
Forget the spin– it’s about jobs!
By Danny Donohue
T
here’s a lot more than meets the eye in the Cuomo Administration’s election year “lower taxes” public relations blitz.
For starters more of the same corporate welfare and tax giveaways will not create more jobs. In fact they may actually lead to a loss of jobs. Don’t take my word for it – it’s the key finding of an extensive and reputable study done for the Governor’s Commission on Tax Reform and Fairness. Unfortunately, you won’t find much about that study in the commission’s recommendations. It was an inconvenient truth that didn’t fit with the political agenda so instead it got buried and we got a new commission chaired by former Gov. George Pataki and former state Comptroller Carl McCall to produce different findings. Oddly, there’s been almost no reporting of this in the mainstream media. An extensive study by Marilyn M. Rubin of John Jay College and Donald J. Boyd, former director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government State and Local Government Finance Research Group, concludes that the giveaway programs are simply costing taxpayers plenty without producing positive economic results. It was prepared for Cuomo’s original Commission on Tax Reform and Fairness. The report was paid for by Pete Peterson, a former Secretary of the Treasury, and the Peter J. Solomon Family Foundation. Neither could be considered anti-Business.
subsidies, not those from industrial development agencies.” When it comes to so-called property tax relief, there’s more deception. Struggling communities across the state have seen no state help. We have also seen elimination of state services and jobs in every part of the state. This has further undermined local economies and contributed to the loss of more than 90,000 public service jobs in the past four years in a vicious circle. Add to the mix state corporate tax breaks at the expense of localities and the result is the economic disaster plaguing communities and stalling our recovery in nearly every part of the state. Now there’s a new proposal for property tax relief. But only for communities that stay beneath their 2 percent property tax cap and meet some vague standard about consolidating services and merging with other localities – regardless of how unpopular that might be. This “relief ” is not even remotely possible without cutting more services and putting more people out of work. CSEA members, like everyone else want lower taxes but we sure don’t want more bad policy and political doubletalk that fails to truly solve problems, eliminates more jobs and increases people’s misery.
But, apparently dissatisfied with these findings, Cuomo appointed the Pataki-McCall Commission to produce different results. These shocking facts have only recently been brought to light by journalist and corporate tax reform advocate David Cay Johnston. Johnston writes: “Think of it this way: over nine years, the state of New York gave businesses roughly $10 billion, or almost $1,400 from each household, in a jobs program that eliminated 175,000 jobs at an average cost of $57,000. And that’s just state-level
LOCAL 1000 AFSCME, AFL-CIO DA N N Y D O N O H U E , P R E S I D E N T
Danny Donohue is president of the nearly 300,000 member CSEA – New York’s Leading Union – representing workers doing every kind of job, in every part of New York.
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city & state — January 8, 2014
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to do this, and it’s widely supported.” De Blasio’s best hope of getting what he wants out of Albany is to build coalitions within the state Capitol outside of the second floor, said Eliot Spitzer’s former top spokesman Darren Dopp, who is now a consultant. “This is de Blasio’s biggest challenge: He knows how to speak Cuomo-ese, but he doesn’t know how to deal with the Legislature,” Dopp said. “He needs some veteran legislative hands to help him.” Perhaps cognizant of that fact, de Blasio has hired himself a Legislature whisperer—at least one fluent in the language of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has long tended the liberal flame at the Capitol and who could prove a valuable ally for the new mayor. In mid-December de Blasio announced he had selected Silver’s former top advisor Dean Fuleihan to serve as his city budget director. Fuleihan spent some three decades working for the Assembly, about half of that time in Silver’s office. Outside of his budgeting experience, which is considerable, observers believe his Albany expertise will complement the political prowess of de Blasio’s intergovernmental affairs director, Emma Wolfe. Both de Blasio and Wolfe are known for their work ethic, encyclopedic knowledge—policy for him, politics for her—and dislike of the spotlight. They are also pragmatic and not in-your-face aggressive or disdainful of intense politicking. That is a departure from the Bloomberg approach in Albany, which netted the outgoing mayor more high-profile losses than wins. Because he does not have Bloomberg’s billions to throw around, de Blasio is going to need to use more finesse when it comes to getting what he wants out of Albany. And maybe that’s a good thing. Staff relations are equally important—if not more so— than what transpires between the principals, former aides to governors and mayors say. Staffers toil for long hours negotiating the details of various deals. The bosses are the front men and the closers. “Staff tends to hold grudges as much as the principals, if not more so,” Catalfamo said. “I remember all these small, stupid wars we had [with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s aides] over which podium would you use, and were you going to have a step and whose seal—little stuff.” Also in de Blasio’s favor is the fact that he is on the right side of this moment in history. Addressing