Category: UPSTATE NEW YORK
LIES+ARROGANCE=BAD POLICY
Dear readers. I have had the pleasure of writing for the Shooters Committee On Political Education (SCOPE) before. They were kind enough to print my article on the NYS Red Flag law in the last edition of their excellent publication called Firing Lines. The following article will appear in the next edition. Thank you to SCOPE and let's celebrate our liberties granted to us by our creator and preserved by the two greatest political documents in human history–THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE US CONSTITUTION. The fight to preserve our freedoms begins and ends with each of us.
A hate-filled mentally ill man attacked Hasidic Jews in the home of their Rabbi with a machete in the upstate town of Monsey, New York, seriously injuring five. Senate Minority Leader Schumer promptly called for an increase in Federal grants to help secure houses of worship and schools. The attack, New York's Governor Cuomo said, was due to a "scourge of hate in this country" and Cuomo, never to be out-pandered, proposed a new state law, the Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act, which makes illegal that which is already illegal. If Cuomo was being consistent, he would have called for a ban on "assault machetes."
New York City mayor Bill deBlasio, who can out-pander anyone, said, "We New Yorkers have the ability to stop the hatred." Frighteningly, the mayor thinks, or wants you to think, that he has the power to change people's feelings. The new "no bail law" in New York State turns many violent offenders loose. But thankfully, this perpetrator of this crime remains in jail on $5 million bail.
Let's compare the Democrat response to the machete attack in Monsey with the Newtown, Connecticut shooting. The difference in tone and focus is striking. Immediately after the Newtown shooting and long before the facts were known, Schumer, Cuomo et.al. blamed so-called assault weapons. At the federal level, Schumer pushed for tougher gun control laws, while Cuomo shoved the Safe Act through the state legislature in record time. Boosting funding to make schools a harder target was never a priority. Democrats never blamed alienation or mental health services that don't reach everyone. Nor did they blame a collapsing moral structure. The focus of their ire was never the shooter, another mentally ill man who stole his mother's guns and murdered her before going to the Newtown school to slaughter the innocents. No, they blamed guns and, by extension, gun owners. Here in New York, the Safe Act didn't make schools safer – it made gun ownership harder, which was the point.
But New York's ruling ideocracy is at it again with State Senate bill S1412. This monstrosity will require every buyer of a shotgun or long gun to apply for a hunting license first. The bill imposes other burdens such as: taking a 5-hour gun safety course, passing a shooting test with 90% accuracy, notarized proof of a passed drug test and mental health evaluation, and finally, proof of safe storage.
Meanwhile, New York State continues to hemorrhage population. The latest census data paints a bleak picture. New York has lost 1.4 million people to other states since 2010. Cuomo was governor for 9 of those 10 years. New York lost 77,000 people in 2019. I don't know the numbers for the 55 counties upstate, but I know that upstate always takes it on the chin.
The title of this article says it all. We know that the Albany/Washington ruling class would love to delete the Second Amendment. But Cuomo, et.al. never admit it; instead, they say they want to make us safer. They're obviously lying. Their arrogance knows no bounds; it is gigantic, oceanic, titanic arrogance. Lies and hubris make for bad public policy. Problems are never really defined or solved. People experience the results and they sense that their leaders are dishonest and govern poorly. This is why people flee New York, if they can.
Author theboisterousseasPosted on January 6, 2020 Categories The Second Amendment, UPSTATE NEW YORK2 Comments on LIES+ARROGANCE=BAD POLICY
Another Blow to Upstate
This comes under the heading, "When you think it can't get any worse." I just read today's NY Post and I thought all of my readers should see this. All credit to the NYP Editorial board for keeping up with the nonsense coming out of Albany. Gov. Andrew is at it again. And if he's at it-we're going to get it. The editorial follows.
Mike Morrongiello, Ph. D.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo just can't seem to resist slamming Upstate simply to pander to the greens. The latest pain: His drive to build vast "wind farms" off Long Island will zing upstaters' electric bills to the tune of more than $1 billion — and that's just for the first round of subsidies.
Credit the Empire Center's Ken Girardin for uncovering this injustice in new filings by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which shows that subsidies for the windmill operators could hit $2.2 billion — — about double today's wholesale electric prices for the city and Long Island.
The cost would be snuck into consumers' electric bills all across New York — with utilities legally barred from telling the public what's going on. And that's just for about a fifth of the 9,000 megawatts of wind power mandated by the "Climate Leadership" law Cuomo got passed this year.
Mind you, the gov's making even green power more expensive than it needs to be, by requiring union wages and work rules on these wind projects and by blocking better alternative sources, like Canadian hydropower, from qualifying for state subsidies.
Meanwhile, much of the state suffers needlessly because of Cuomo's junk-science ban on fracking, which robs depressed rural areas of good jobs and the wealth that selling drilling rights would bring.
This gov's "climate leadership" is pushing much of the state to ruin.
Filed under andrew cuomo , climate change , editorial , electricity
Author theboisterousseasPosted on October 28, 2019 Categories New York State Government, progressives, UPSTATE NEW YORKTags ECONOMICSLeave a comment on Another Blow to Upstate
WHO'S FREDO?
Tom Hanks as Forest Gump: "Stupid is as stupid does."
Chris Cuomo threatened to throw a man down the stairs for calling him Fredo, a reference to the character brilliantly played by the late John Cazale in Godfather 1 and 2. Fredo was easily the dullest of his three brothers, and as a result, he was given menial tasks in the Corleones' vast criminal empire. I'm Italian-American and proud of it, but calling someone Fredo is calling them stupid, bumbling and incompetent; it is not an ethnic slur. Since the Fredo affair I've been thinking: which Cuomo brother is the biggest bumbler? Who's really Fredo? It's a close call.
Astonishingly, both Cuomos claim that calling them Fredo is smearing their Italian heritage. They're the sons of a former governor, presidential hopeful and scions of one of New York's most powerful families. One is a CNN anchor, the other New York's governor. They both whine like victims. If that's not Fredo-level stupidity, I don't know what is.
Fredo Corleone: "I can handle things. I'm smart and I want respect." Like running New York State, Andrew?
Let's look at Andrew Cuomo's record as Governor. Upstate NY has been hemorrhaging people since 2010. The grim numbers show that 43 of the 50 upstate counties have lost population since the last census.
Cuomo had a chance to jump-start the upstate economy, but he banned gas development. Fracking would have brought billions of dollars into Upstate. Pennsylvania produces 20% of the nation's natural gas, second only to Texas. Imagine the cash tidal wave flooding into that state. That could have been us. But instead of being a net exporter of gas, we are an importer. Our dollars flow out but in Pennsylvania, dollars flow in. Cuomo looked prosperity in they eye and said no, thank you. This should go down in history as one of the dumbest executive decisions in the history of executive decisions.
Cuomo banned fracking, rendering the vast natural resource that is natural gas unusable. Natural resource development has been a source of prosperity throughout history. Steuben County NY is a stone's throw from Tioga County PA. But while Tioga County prospers because of fracking, Steuben County withers, in no small part because fracking is banned.
Cuomo's economic development plan is a joke. Cuomo "invested" $15 million in the Central New York Film Hub. It was sold last month for $1. Soraa LED reneged on a $90 million factory near Syracuse funded by us, the taxpayers. But don't worry, the State Senate "invested" $15 million more to lure another company to the factory.
New York State's jobless rate lags behind the national average of 4.1 percent at 4.7%. In 55 of the 57 counties outside of New York City the jobless rate rose from 2016 to 2018. Then there's the Buffalo billion. Cuomo "invested" $750 million of our hard-earned money to create 3,000 jobs. So far the jobs created stand at 700. Cuomo spent $600 million for a factory for a company called Ams AG. They bailed on the deal. Job growth in the counties outside of New York city was a puny 1% from 2010 to 2016, but from 2016 to mid-2019 job growth slowed even more, to 0.5%
Like that great philosopher Forrest Gump said, "stupid is as stupid does." By the Gump standard, Governor Andrew is really stupid.
One Cuomo brother screws up New York State, the other brother makes a hash of television journalism, but the question remains, who's Fredo?
Chris may be adding to the low ratings and joke status of CNN, but you can turn off CNN. Sadly, Andrew's governorship has no off button for New Yorkers. The mute button offers relief from Andrew's noise, but not from his policies. By the sheer the weight of impact, the hands-down winner of Who's Fredo is Andrew, and the joke is on us.
Author theboisterousseasPosted on September 10, 2019 September 10, 2019 Categories Chris and Andrew Cuomo, ethnic slurs, Progressive Policy Failure, UPSTATE NEW YORKTags Fredo, UPSTATE NEW YORK2 Comments on WHO'S FREDO?
NO PRINCIPLES!
Democrats have no principles. A bold statement, to be sure, but I can back it up. Just watch Governor Cuomo twisting himself into a logical pretzel over SALT (state and local taxes.) The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, better known as the Trump tax cuts, passed in December of 2017, limiting the amount of state and local taxes deductible on federal income tax returns to $10,000. This effects only wealthy taxpayers. Who else has deductions of state and local taxes of $10,000 or more?
Cuomo and his Democrat buddies run New York. They have held every statewide office since 2007 and enjoy a 2:1 advantage in voter registration. Democrats are always trying to increase taxes on the "rich." They have demonized the rich
since FDR – he called them "princes of privilege" and "economic royalists." Now Democrats call them greedy, selfish and so on. This is as dumb as it is cynical. So when the Republicans limited the SALT deduction, effectively raising taxes on the wealthy, you would think Democrats would be rubbing their hands in glee. But no, they were angry. They blamed Trump and his Republican colleagues for raising taxes on the wealthy – which wouldn't be possible if Cuomo and company hadn't raised them to begin with.
The following may be too sensible for most Democrats to grasp, but state and local taxes are the responsibility of the states and localities. What Cuomo is angry about is that his high taxes are no longer subsidized by other states with lower taxes. Cuomo and his cronies are now exposed, they have to own the effects of their "tax the rich" policies, and he is not happy.
New York is now facing a shortfall in projected revenue of $3.2 billion, the direct result of wealthy New Yorkers leaving the state. Cuomo calls this "serious as a heart attack." The top 1% of New York's highest earners pay 46% of all taxes. Maybe Democrats should now love the rich; 46% of all taxes sounds like the rich are "paying their fair share." A reporter asked if the state should yet again raise taxes on the rich." Cuomo said, "Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. We did! Now, God forbid the rich leave." When average New Yorkers leave the state, as they have been, Cuomo is unfazed. We've lost 1.9 million people between 2005 to 2016, well before the SALT limitations took effect. First Cuomo blamed the weather for the New York exodus, now he blames Republicans.
Democrats (progressives) love taxes and regulations and hate incentives, which is what is needed. In the competition between the states for jobs, taxpayers wealthy and not, New York is the loser. Cuomo never mentioned the things that would bring people back to the state, a meaty tax cut and a corresponding reduction in New York state's bloated government.
Author theboisterousseasPosted on March 1, 2019 Categories New York State Government, UPSTATE NEW YORKTags Democrat Party, ECONOMICS2 Comments on NO PRINCIPLES!
A BIG PRESENT FOR THEM- BUPKIS FOR US
It's going to be a very Merry Christmas for New York State lawmakers and bureaucrats, who are poised to get a lavish pay raise. As of now, Assemblymen and Senators receive $79,500 per year for a part-time job. The proposed pay increase would boost their pay to a whopping $130,000 by 2021, an increase of $50,500, or 64%. Naturally, our so-called leaders fobbed this decision off to a commission so their fingerprints won't be on it – a weak attempt at plausible deniability. The commission will render a decision soon. Any bets on their recommendation?
(Greedy Albany politicians grow fat while New Yorkers suffer.)
Republican Senate Minority leader (in January 2019) John Flanagan and Democrat Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie are foursquare behind the gluttonous increase. Senators and legislators from NYC and its suburbs are behind it. The Governor loves the idea, too, saying, "We're trying to get quality people into state government and frankly, we are non-competitive." Non-competitive, non-moral and non-competent too. But the great pay bump comes at a steep price, says the commission and the greed-friendly newspapers. If approved, our lawmakers will be allowed to make only 15% of their income from sources outside their elective office. This is supposed to curb corruption. If approved, this would make New York lawmakers the highest paid in the nation.
But that's not all. The heads of agencies currently make from $90,000 to $136,000. Under the proposal their salaries will jump to $220,000 by 2021. As of now the Comptroller and Attorney General make $151,500, which is scheduled to bump up to $220,000. Cuomo's salary will jump from $179,000 to $250,000. (The last pay raise was in 1998.)
According to the latest census data, the median household income for New Yorkers is $64,894. The median per capita income in the state is $37,156. Cuomo recently said, "You want to get talented people into the legislature. You have to pay them a salary that allows them to live and not be a martyr."
You read it right. If an Assemblyman makes 79.5 K, he's a martyr. That's more than twice the income of many New Yorkers. Do agency heads and commissioners need to make five times the earnings of the average New Yorker? In this state, we have high taxes, less personal freedom, slow economic growth (especially upstate,) population loss (especially upstate,) no deal on state mandates, infrastructure in disrepair. In the real world outside of government, raises are based on productivity. Is this a record that deserves a raise?
Democrats are always bleating about income inequality – the exception being when it involves their income. Then it's equality be damned.
( Who owns the government us or Albany politicians?)
This proposal solidifies the Albany government as a permanent ruling class: well paid, well-connected and safe in their incumbency. They will be groomed for government, work in government and retire from government—knowing nothing of life outside of government. Don't tell Cuomo and his fellow Democrats this, but government does not have a dime that it doesn't first take from someone who, by the sweat of her brow, earned it.
Author theboisterousseasPosted on December 14, 2018 December 14, 2018 Categories New York State Government, UPSTATE NEW YORKTags Government Greed3 Comments on A BIG PRESENT FOR THEM- BUPKIS FOR US
COUMO'S BAH HUMBUG
In 2015, Andrew Cuomo wrecked the party. The Southern Tier and the rest of upstate New York were ready to celebrate the incredible gift of vast stores of natural gas under our feet and the prospect of prosperity, jobs and a booming economy, so close we could taste it. But Andrew "Scrooge" Cuomo and his down-state Democrat cronies gave us an early Christmas present in June of 2015: he banned hydrofracking. He didn't give us coal in our stockings; coal is a cheap and plentiful fossil fuel, and Cuomo hates that. Instead, he gave us casinos, a comedy museum in Jamestown, and a failed economic development program. Not to mention the Buffalo Billion – a billion dollars of our money "invested" in a solar panel company that hasn't produced a single job. Bah! Humbug! While New York languishes, other states produce natural gas and prosper.
Right next door, Pennsylvania is the second-leading producer of natural gas in country. In a previous article called A Tale of Two Counties (Dickens again), I compared the economies of Steuben County, NY with Tioga County, PA. They are both rural counties located a stone's throw from each other. They're alike in many ways, except that Tioga can drill for gas. The result is that Tioga County handily beats Steuben in every economic measure.
Economists have studied the effect of the fracking boom – and boom is the right word, because the effect has been huge. The Brookings Institute (no conservative outfit) says, "The US fracking revolution has caused natural gas prices to drop 47 percent compared to what it would have been prior to the fracking revolution in 2013. Gas bills have dropped $13 billion per year for gas-consuming households." This puts more money in the pockets of American consumers.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/03/23/the-economic-benefits-of-fracking/
But what about local communities? The DI Blog has tuns of information on that issue.
https://info.drillinginfo.com/local-economic-impacts-fracking-boom/
The net effect of fracking is an increase in wages and general employment. Approximately 725,000 jobs have been created. Unemployment during the great recession was reduced by 0.5%. Salaries in counties that have fracking have risen by 2.4% to 13.5%. Counties with fracking generally have 5% higher employment that those counties that don't. The gains in wages are across all income groups.
Unemployment during the great recession was reduced by 0.5%. Salaries in counties that have fracking have risen by 2.4% to 13.5%. Counties with fracking generally have 5% higher employment that those counties that don't. The gains in wages are across all income groups.
The University of Chicago News found similar gains in local economies. These include a 6% increase in income, a 10% increase in employment and a 6% jump in housing prices. They declared, "In the last decade, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has helped deliver lower energy prices, enhanced energy security, and lowered air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions."
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/study-suggests-hydraulic-fracturing-boosts-local-economies
Cuomo, like Scrooge, is closed-minded and selfish. Cuomo banned fracking to assure his political future. His base would have revolted if he allowed it, and you can't run for President without your base. In describing Scrooge, Dickens said, "The cold within him froze his old features." But maybe Cuomo will be visited by the ghost of Upstate's future: "Ebeneezer….I mean Andrew, let the people of Upstate prosper. Let them unlock the vast natural resources they own." Then Ebeneezer Coumo's glaciated heart would thaw, and Upstate would once again thrive.
Wouldn't that be a nice Christmas present.
WRITERS NOTE: This article will also appear on Tom Shepstone's excellent blog, Natural Gas Now. Tom's blog is always interesting and informative. Every time I go there, I learn something new. Please give it a visit.
Author theboisterousseasPosted on December 3, 2018 December 3, 2018 Categories Fracking, UPSTATE NEW YORKTags Upstate Economy2 Comments on COUMO'S BAH HUMBUG