The appalling confiscatory taxes and oppressively liberal political climate in NY is one of the reasons I no longer live there. The upstaters are the groaning serfs, the city-dwellers are the greedy lords.
Upstate NY can be a marvelously wonderful place to live and is full of great people. But, decades of corrupt, liberal rule based in the large city machines have turned it into a gasping rural fiefdom struggling to survive on the edge as they are sucked dry by the socialist city and it's environs who hold all the political power. Take a look at the red/blue map. Like California or any other blue state on the skids, it's easy to see what's going on there by looking at the map.
This is the 2000 map of NY, it didn't change much for this year..
The cities control the politics of the whole state.
Medicaid mandates, welfare and the government dependent society is killing us.
Albany tells us what to do and we have to pay the bill.
Did you know?
- New York State's $41 billion Medicaid program is larger than the Medicaid budgets of California and Texas combined?
- Erie County's Medicaid cost has increased by $81 million since 1999 and will rise by another $29 million in 2005.
- That New York State runs Medicaid and sends Erie County the bill.