What New York Didn't Need (or Why Everyone Should Despise NYC)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently signed an 18 percent real estate tax increase into law. This was designed to close the city's $5 billion dollar budget gap, a remarkable amount of red ink given that the city's bloated budget is some $42 billion. The Republican mayor was determined not to cut government jobs or programs. The taxpayers would have to bear just about the entire burden, even though the city finances were already mismanaged.

"The city is bankrupt," said one member of the infamous New York City Council, which is dominated by Democrats. It voted 41–6 to pass the huge tax increase. How ridiculous is our leviathan New York City government? Several members of our infamous governing body didn't even show up to vote!

The six council dissenters, many of whom had the nerve to buck our imperial masters, were immediately threatened with all sorts of political repercussions by the first hooligan as well as the leadership of the City Council. One maverick councilman, in a futile attempt to stop this ripoff tax grab, actually said that he was voting his conscience because the taxes would be a hardship for many of his constituents.

Can you imagine anyone saying such a thing in this Soviet republic on the Hudson? A politician who actually had some concerns for his overtaxed neighbors. Fancy that, Hedda!

But fear not, comrades. This gentleman's intelligent objections were turned aside by the council's socialist majority that has ruled our city for at least half a century and will continue to do so up to the minute in which a New York Gorbachev throws up his hands and the Red flag is hauled down.

Even in raising taxes with the promise of solving the city's perpetual budget woes there was more than a bit of fraud. Part of the mayor's plan to "balance" the budget—one of the funniest phrases in New York City's troubled history given the many attempts of so many previous mayors who practically invented Enron accounting techniques—was to reinstitute the commuter tax. This is a wonderful political move because, as an old city pol might have put it, "how many votes are there in the suburbs?"

The only problem with bringing back this hated impost is that—unlike the real estate tax that sailed through the city council almost as quickly as pay raises for our estimable city Solons—this bit of theft requires the approval of the state legislature. And—this may surprise my fellow citizens of our slave municipality—many New Yorkers who live outside of the Rancid Apple just don't trust Gotham. Their stereotype of New York City is one of a spendthrift town that always expects to be bailed out by the rest of the state.

A key member of the state legislature told Michael to forget about the commuter tax. No matter, Mike is not discouraged. He's not stopping with taxing people who can't vote him out of office or people who own or rent property in this city. Madman Mike no sooner had his 18% property tax, than he announced plans to put still more geld in the city coffers.

When the latest tax increase was signed into law—in the near record time of two weeks because no one wanted to have any extensive hearings on why this was again happening to overtaxed New York—our esteemed chief executive had a warning for his now benighted subjects: Next year, said he of Gracie Mansion, he is planning on raising the city income tax. But there is escape for the overtaxed citizens of our corrupt city.

Just think, fellow slaves, if you don't own or rent property, if you have no income--in other words if you're homeless and without a job—the mayor will not bother you. He will not reach into your empty pockets because there are far better pickings for the exploiter class elsewhere. However, if you're middle class, if you have a small or big business, if you own property here in New York, well then, look out! And don't expect the members of the local legislature to provide any relief or any substantive philosophical alternative to the mayor with a ravenous appetite for taxes, taxes and more taxes.

Our sleazebag city council members are the proud successors to the infamous Tammany dominated Board of Alderman made famous by Boss Tweed and many other convicted felons. Indeed, Tweed's high priced courthouse—financed with the sweat and big tax increases of generations of previous New Yorkers—still stands today in back of City Hall.

The Tweed courthouse is a stark reminder of the venality of our city politic. This is a city in which people work and sweat to finance their representatives' cellphones, limos and, of course, their sundry sycophants, who provide excuses for why their bosses don't attend meetings but continue to collect fat salaries. But, as veteran New Yorkers know, democracy is a pricey proposition.

This is a city in which each of the city's five counties has no county government, but in which each of these counties—called boroughs—there is the elected post of borough president. Sounds impressive, no?

Still, under the city charter, revised some 10 years ago, these borough presidents have almost no power or responsibilities. Nevertheless, they all retained their six figure salaries and staffs, proof positive that New York City's public sector can no more be reduced than can the waistline of someone who lives on Donuts and thinks McDonalds is superior to French cuisine.

If given enough time and power, this gang of well-fed running our city will destroy its remaining industries. They and their antecedents already have an impressive record of mayhem. So many industries have already departed New York in the last fifty years. This sad record can be viewed by taking a tour of the hundreds of empty factories throughout the outer boroughs of the city. They are places where our parents and grandparents once worked; places that were stepping-stones for their children to a middle class life. New York City's ruling classes—Democrats and, to a lesser extent, the supplicant Republicans, who are usually happy to take the crumbs of socialists running this city—are destroying this heritage of self-improvement.

Queens, a borough with close to two million population, once housed hundreds of factories, most of which are now gone. The economy of the outer boroughs, once booming, was sacrificed by pols to the needs of the city's central districts, midtown and the financial area. Brooklyn was once a major industrial area. Today Brooklyn, a great city in the 19^th century, has an economy that is a shell of what it was once.

Our highly paid city planning commission has also contributed to the destruction of New York City's economy, which has an unemployment rate of about 50% greater than the national average in good times and bad. The planning commission signed on to white elephants such as the Javits Center, a problem plagued convention center built in the 1980s. The Javits Center was dogged by gross cost overruns from the first day of construction. Its bills were passed on to the taxpayers through the vehicle of public authorities that certainly are not answerable to the taxpayers. Worse was to come.

Ever since the Javits Center actually began its egregious operations, it has had a history of union problems, corruption and an inability to compete with convention centers in other cities. Pols in other cities are hungry for taxes, but few would say they have achieved the swinish standards of New York's ruling hogs.

Even the crown jewel of the city's economy, Manhattan, has lost much of its business. For example, the famed theater district, a huge part of the city's now fading tourist industry, once ran from 14st to 59st. The theater district is now a tiny fraction of that. It quits in the low 50s and doesn't begin until the high 30s. Two theater tickets are not only expensive—a recent performance of a revival of Man of LaMancha set one back in excess of $180—but they often contain extra service charges. That's even though our piggy governors swear they want to "help" the tourist industry, which, like countless other New York industries that suffered and died, is also on the decline.

The garment district is also a shell of what it once was. Railroads were once great here. No more. On the West Side of Manhattan is a relic of a once great freight line, the High Line, which in the early to mid 20^th century provided a vitally needed freight service run by the New York Central. It also is now long gone. It was an engineering marvel that actually ran into some of the factories. Those factories are gone. The High Line is now a collection of weeds.

Here is a delicious irony. The city's one party government is led by leftists/socialists who pride themselves on their pro-environment stands. Today, with freight train business derailed, the city is choking in truck fumes because it has no effective freight link. This is a testament to the many businesses that cried uncle after relentless regulation, taxes and pols who demanded that business be compassionate first and, possibly, a little profitable last. Of course, not too profitable, the politicos warn as they go about assassinating business after business.

The cry of city pols that we're bankrupt so we're raising taxes is an old game that has been played with great flair by many of Bloomberg's sleazebag predecessors. For example, Robert Wagner was a popular mayor in the 1950s and 1960s. In a famous message in the early 1960s, Wagner, facing a similar fiscal crisis, blamed the bankers, who bought and sold city bonds, for the city's plight.

Wagner, like Bloomberg today, wasn't going to cut precious public sector jobs. He promised that he wouldn't let the city's expanding debt stop his determined effort to make the city's welfare structure bigger, encouraging citizens to become dependent on an incompetent government instead of themselves. Although Wagner lied about many things, let's give the dear departed credit: He sure kept this promise.

Wagner also basically handed much of the city over to power broker Robert Moses. The latter proceeded to wreck countless neighborhoods with his hideous highways and his policy of destroying the city's already crumbling mass transit, which had once been a great system under private management. The latter, by the way, was prohibited from ever raising its fares above a nickel during its 40 years of operation. However, under public control the subway fare has gone through the roof. But, unlike the previous private operation, there are no complaints about outrageous profits because there are never profits in the subways.

John Lindsay, the famous tower of jelly mayor who gave New York's already overburdened citizens its first city income tax, blamed Washington, private business and anyone and everyone for the city's problems in the 1960s and 1970s.

Abe Beame, a longtime city controller who sanctioned so much of the city's questionable accounting practices, was Lindsay's successor. Beame, Lindsay, Wagner and other George Washington Plunkitts all made the city so dependent on debt, that, by the 1970s, New York City was the fiscal equivalent of a crack addict.The city was using debentures, short term notes, just to pay the day-to-day operations of the city. By this period the city was so hard up that even many routine construction measures had to be put off.

Beame, significantly enough the disciple of Bob Wagner, skirted bankruptcy. Of course, in true New York politco style, he said it was all someone else's fault. He and Lindsay also dreamed up the Yankee Stadium boondoggle, which had a city in the midst of fiscal problems, buy and renovate the House that Ruth Built. A supposed $20 million project ended up costing the city somewhere north of $100 million.

Always a good friend of every mayor, King George Steinbrenner and his Yankees got along wonderfully with all our mayors (That is until the late 1990s when Georgie complained that Yankee Stadium wasn't good enough and the city should build him a new one. The owners of the cross-town Mets, in effect, said, "Where's Ours?").

The bills for the infamous Yankee Stadium renovation weren't sent to George. They were sent to the taxpayers, who also continue to subsidize possibly the most profitable franchise in sports through a sweetheart lease deal that affords the owner of the Pinstripes a ridiculously low rent. (And remember the landlord is the city, which is "bankrupt."). George makes up for the cheap rent by offering the mayor and council members cheap or free tickets to the games, while the taxpayers pay through the nose in several ways. And so it goes.

Still, two of the mayors who followed these payasos called Wagner, Lindsay and Beame were strong and might have tried to reform the city had they the will and the intellectual capacity to fight against the tide of runaway statism.

They weren't interested in trying to turn the tide and New York City continued its long, slow decline that would lead Money Magazine, by the 1990s, to call our sorry municipality "tax hell."

Ed Koch and Rudolph Guliani were popular mayors in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s who were lucky enough to see rising city tax revenues from a booming stock market, the city's last remaining big industry and one our myopic masters don't understand could be lost in the next few years given the development of electronic communications networks (ECNs). These two mayors had the political capital to attempt radical changes in the city's tax and regulatory changes.

They were more interested in winning elections than in roping in the city's runaway bureaucracies or taking on its special interests. These mayors weren't the types to lay off city workers or close any superfluous city agencies or institutions (One small example: The city pays for a law school in which mediocre college students, many of whom celebrated the Soviet Union, have been able to pretend that they have the scholarly abilities to become lawyers).

Any other bankrupt entity would be forced to reduce spending; to slim down its spending patterns; to go to a Betty Ford clinic for chronic overspenders. Not our city government, which, in its recent decision to raise taxes to the stratosphere, also decided on no major cutbacks. In fact, I recently read an announcement that the Queens library will expand its hours, offering Sunday service at the central library as well as several branches. But please remember: The city is "bankrupt."

My council representative, Democrat Melinda Katz, never met a big spending program that she would oppose or even trim. Her analysis of our sorry state? It's all because of the September 11 disaster and the national recession. How convenient. That lets off her and all her colleagues in crime.

Katz, in response to my letter protesting the 18% increase, bragged about how most cuts were avoided in the Bloomberg "budget modification." (Honest to God, she paid one of her flunkies to use that term). She also crowed that "Youth beacon programs will continue" and that "There will be no education cuts to the classroom."

Fine. The city's notoriously egregious education establishment will continue to receive, misspend and lose tons of taxpayer money. It will continue to turn out tens of thousands of students who don't read, write or perform math at their grade levels. It will continue, even though kids in New York public schools receive an education far inferior to most private schools, to promote kids to the next grade in the famous New York policy of "social promotion."

In the meantime, here's the Katz recipe—the typical career city pol analysis—for digging out of the city's perpetual fiscal problems: "The City needs time to re-establish itself and be able to move forward without having a major impact on our quality of life."

Katz obviously is an expert in Doublespeak. So let me offer a translation: Don't expect us, the poltroonish pols of your venal city, to take the tough steps that will give the overburdened citizens a break. We're not going to cross the unions and other special interests that expect us to keep these ridiculously inept programs fat and well fed. Be sure to vote for me in the Democratic primary. Hey! You're welcome!

What is amazing about our city from Wagner to Bloomberg—from countless city councils of the past to the I am great Melinda Katzs of today, from the liberal republicans to the social democrats—is the continuity of crackpot leadership. What is it about New York City that produces myriad mountebanks?

Or maybe it is just that our ruling class is determined to prove Karl Marx right. The first time history repeats it is a tragedy, he said. The second time, it is a farce. Welcome to Farce City.

Every day when one reads the papers, one goes down Memory Lane. The names change, but the problems and philosophies of the Rancid Apple are always the same. The city taxes, regulates and spends too much. There's about as much mystery here as why people and institutions go bankrupt or why many Americans become obese. Some people can't stop eating so they get fat. Our city can't stop taxing and adding to the payroll so it claims bankruptcy while ordering a triple portion of taxation.

In the early 1980s, the city's public workforce was around 200,000. Today it is close to 300,000, a nearly 50 percent increase. That's even though the population is about the same. What's the excuse? The consistently corrupt nature of New York City politics.

It is waging a war through various and sundry taxing authorities against property, against business, against the spirit of self-improvement and, most of all, against middle-class New Yorkers with multiple jobs who always seem to be behind the eight ball. So many of the latter inevitably end up moving to New Jersey—another taxing clime, but an ostensible Cayman Islands compared to the People's Republic of New York.

We live in a city in which ancient rent control laws going back to World War II—now junked in almost every other major city—continue on the city's books, benefiting many of the rich and well connected. Rent control provides more evidence of the crass economic illiteracy of the mayors and city councils that have ignored every warning of impending city fiscal disasters and pressed ahead with more and more taxes. Is it any wonder than many builders want no part of New York's arcane laws and price controls? Would I accept a limitation on how much I could make? A limitation on how much I could improve myself? I would not.

But despite Bloomberg's recent 18% tax hike, despite his promise that next year the hated city income tax will be hiked, another tax increase beyond these is looming on the horizon for New Yorkers. It is a tax increase that is another result of generations of municipal and state mismanagement. And even though it is unlikely to be recognized as a tax increase by millions of New Yorkers, most of whom just take these confisicatory imposts for granted, it is still another rip-off in a long series of rip-offs.

Gregory Bresiger, a business writer and editor living in Kew Gardens New York, is assistant managing editor of Traders Magazine. His work has also appeared in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Free Market, Financial Advisor and the New York Post. See his Mises.org Articles Archive, and send him MAIL.

OPEN LETTER TO MR. BRESIGER

Dear Mr. Bresiger:

You are very good at attacking elected officials and I have a few suggestions for you. It would be nice to if you learned all the facts and presented a bright idea or maybe even two yourself. You are obviously very familiar with the City's past and the "corruption" you believe there is. There are tremendous errors in your assessment of the City's budget modification, and if you were a decent journalist I hope you will write a follow up piece with these corrections.

#1--Republicans did the same in Nassau, after they mismanaged the budget...this is nothing new it is something that has to be done...my other points will show that.

#2--The Mayor and the Council have cut hundreds of millions of dollars in the City budget for this fiscal year. That includes monies that go to those Borough Presidents you hate so much...By the way one of the jobs of a good BP is to bring back money to their borough to spend on things such as private bus service, Meals on Wheels, and graffiti cleanup. I'm sure a resident of Forest Hills would nearly die if graffiti was found in their neighborhood. That is money that would not come to Queens if the position was not there.

#3--The Speaker pink slipped nearly 90 Council employees last February, some Council Members have given back their stipends, and a bipartisan effort is in the Council now to cut the tax dollars going to the campaign finance program, in half. And lets not forget a number of Bloomberg's staff, including himself are working for free. The Mayor has eliminated repetitive tasks in his administrative by creating the 3-1-1 system that will be put in place this month.

#4--As for the schools, the City Council has cut over $200 million dollars in administrative costs at the Board of Ed, taken a small portion of that and placed in into buying school supplies. The Mayor has eliminated the inefficient board of Ed, and has tremendously cut costs at the School Construction Authority (The largest source of waste in education spending) by combining them with a similar agency within the City.

#5--As for libraries, some may have extended to Sunday hours but why not look at the rest of the hours around the borough. They either open or close at 1pm...not the regular 6 day a week 9-6 hours we used to see. And was this the politicians way of protecting union and special interests??? I don't think the Queens Library hires lobbyists or donates large amounts to City campaigns. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

#6--Some Council Members were absent for the vote. Yes, they were, have you called these offices to see why they were absent. Maybe make 4 calls and do a little investigative reporting. I saw in a few local papers one Council Member had his mother pass away the day before. I'll be checking in to see if you come in to work the next time a loved one of yours dies.

#7--You attack both Bloomberg and the Council, but you seem to have a strong distaste for this "socialist" Council. Let me remind you that it was the Republican Mayor who wanted a 25% tax increase and this "leftist" body got it down to 18.5%. FYI-Your wonderful Council Member, Melinda Katz, and the rest of her other Queens colleagues lobbied to have it as low as 12%...again maybe you should read the papers.

#8--The Council and Mayor signed stipulations to ensure that seniors and the disabled would not have to pay the full 18.5% so not only the homeless are spared, but New Yorkers who can least afford it.

#9--Rent Control is something this City should cherish, apartment rates in this City are much higher than many other places in the country. Most rent stabilized and control tenants still pay more for their apartments then other places. i.e. A friend of mine in a Forest Hills, in a rent stabilized apartment, pays more than $1600 for a two bedroom. My friend in Detroit, in a gated community, pays only $820 for a bigger 2 bedroom apartment.

#10--How spoiled can you get. Even at $2 a pop the subway and bus system is the best deal I've ever seen. They run at a decent rate, even on holidays. In places like Florida the rate is only $1 but the bus only comes once an hour. Other places, like NJ, charge you by the distance you travel. Right now you can take as many rides as you want and travel as far as you like in the City, for a flat rate of $4. FIND ME A BETTER DEAL.

#11-And finally, the commuter tax should be reinstated, at a higher level. We lose over half-a-billion dollars a year because it isn't here. On 9/11, the problem that has created most of this mess, the CITY paid Fire Fighter and the CITY paid Police saved many Long Islanders and others. And the CITY paid workers cleaned up the mess. Its time to bring it back and time to put pressure on Speaker Silver. Other states do it, so can we. The City has been bailing out the State for many years now...you have it the flipped. Its time the State give some back, not bail us out.

So I ask that you come up with some cost saving ideas $6 billion worth. Our City Council ensured we continue to have police protection, fire houses, and food for seniors. Along with those GREAT BEACON programs that keep our kids off the streets. The City is cutting nurses out of school and why don't you look at the garbage cans on Queens Blvd. Bet they look kind of full. That's because the City has cut the Parks and Sanitation Department also, along with the DOT, DEP, the Comptroller, ACS, and senior programs. Please find me another billion and a half to cut from City Agencies. Then maybe you can complain.

Michael Andrews
Hollis, NY---LIFE LONG REGISTERED REPUBLICAN

Welcome to FR (nice detailed response BTW, and I would like to see if Bresiger responds. You can email him if you go to the original link.

However, I have a fundamental philosophical disagreement with your response on a couple of points and to your conclusion.Our City Council ensured we continue to have police protection, fire houses, and food for seniors. Along with those GREAT BEACON programs that keep our kids off the streets. ... Please find me another billion and a half to cut from City Agencies. Then maybe you can complain.

It is not the role of government to provide food for seniors, sports stadiums at taxpayer exense to further enrich already wealthy professional sports teams, and programs to keep kids off the streets. As far as police "protection" goes, there is the case of the guy shot a career criminal who was burglarizing his car. What did the police do? Arrested the guy for protecting his property - something the police showed no interest in doing the previous times that his property was stolen.

#7--You attack both Bloomberg and the Council, but you seem to have a strong distaste for this "socialist" Council. Let me remind you that it was the Republican Mayor who wanted a 25% tax increase and this "leftist" body got it down to 18.5%. FYI-Your wonderful Council Member, Melinda Katz, and the rest of her other Queens colleagues lobbied to have it as low as 12%...again maybe you should read the papers.

Why should the government get ANY tax increase. This is a time of sluggish economic growth, with many Americans having to tighten their belts, yet profligate governments everywhere are squandering money at an even greater rate than before. They claim they provide "essential services." This is PURE BS!! What they provide is pipeline from the taxpayers' pockets to the pockets of the government's bureaucrats, dependents, and toadies. It doesn't matter whether the thugs who are behind it are Republican or Democrat, the net effect is the same.

You think that the commuter tax should be reinstated (and you call yourself a Republican - I guess a NYC Republican is the same as a Georgia liberal Democrat) Well the problem with that is that commuters don't have to work in your bloated communist city. They can find jobs elsewhere. Companies can (and should) relocate to places where they have a more favorable business climate (< sarcasm>like maybe Cuba < /sarcasm>) And then when government has sucked the last drop of ecomomic blood out of its victims - those New Yorkers who actually work for a living - and squandered its ill gotten gains on buying votes, what will it do then? What will it do when the last business moves to Alabama or Tennessee or Peru? What will the vast hordes of militant welfare queens and overpaid underworked city employees do?

Thank you for your reply. I did receive one back from Mr. Bresiger and since it is incorporated with my letter it's a long 7 pages. I will email it to you seperately and anyone else who would like to see it.

I agree with some of your points such as we should not pay for sports stadiums...I never understood voters whom voted to do that. As for seniors it may not be the role of government to feed them but seniors are the largest voting block in the country, and in New York City the senior centers provide lunch for them (used to be 7 days) but now only 5. The way this democracy works is that if you vote in a block and that block gets you elected, they get served. So its only right that if they ask NY politicians for something they find away to provide, its how you participate in government. Also with the rent control that Mr. Bresiger hates so much, seniors spend most of their SS checks on their rent. A rent controlled apartment, 2 bedroom in NYC can go from somewhere between $1100-$1700. So if two Seniors are lucky enough to receive at least $1000 each (that's the high side of SS) after rent they only have $300-$900 a month. If there is no rent control you can imagine how high the rent would be...I don't know where they would leave. That's why I agree with the President's idea to invest SS in the stock market.

As for taxes, I would usually agree with you that they should not be raised...but even after all the service cuts (Bloomberg laid off another 2,000 city workers today) as you will see in my letter, we are still facing a 25% increases in our bus and train services adn a 20% increases in City and State College tuitions. The rest of New York State is extremely poor outside of certain few areas and the City has been paying for all the State's misfalls over the last 15 years. We now carry 60% percent of the States debt, we have a $6 billion dollar hole and the since the commuter tax was elimnated the City has lost $2 billion dollars (in 4 years). Conn. and Mass. does it and the Mayor has welcomed NJ to do it if we do. The fact is people from Pennslyvania, New Jersey, Conneticut, Massachutes, and Vermont all come here and work. We aren't driving businesses out we are bringing people in. I don't know any other city that brings in people from 5 other states and dozens of the states counties. They benefit from our stellar police protection that has seen crime drop faster than the national level. We live in the safest big city in the world. Our firefighters and EMS workers respond to all emegencies. They rip up our roads (if you've never been on an NYC street, you're in for s surprise). They fill our garbage cans that santation workers pick up. They spend leisure time at places such as Central Park the our Parks Department keeps clean. They contribute to the air pollution that the President's EPA thinks is so bad they are now suing our City for. It is only fair that people who use our services 200 days out of the year help with the costs of its upkeep.

As for the Beacon programs I believe that can go either way, I don't think you are wrong on the issue but I believe it is something that greatly benefits the community. Many parents in NYC are single parent working people. I agree with the President's family values package becuase I understand that famalies that stay together help this country. But if parents aren't home to watch their 10 year old, I know if I were a signle parent I rather have them in a safe school program instead of on the streets or hanging out with the wrong crowd. I think the Beacon Program is the one and only accomplishment that MAyor Dinkins had.

Thanks for the welcome...I will be writing back to Mr. Bresiger back, since his letter contains many other errors (e.g. lulus and stipends are the same thing and Councilman are not part-time postions).

I have no problem with raising the price of transit and college tuition to cover the actual cost. In fact I think that this is a excellent idea since it shows the true costs of these heavily subsidized activities, and it shifts the burden of paying to those who receive the services. I wish that our transit system would charge higher rates - currently $1.50 for an unlimited ride. should be $2.50 at least

I must disagree with your assessment of the NYC police. I lived in the Bronx in the early 70's and unless NYC has changed a lot, your "police protection" is a joke. At the time, burgulary and muggings were fairly common and it was obvious that the police had no interest in doing anything but lip service to find the criminals. One of my coworkers was mugged three times by the same guy in the same area near his home over the course of a year, and the police did nothing. It appeared to me then and even more so now that the NYC police/government have sort of an unwritten agreement with the criminals something like the following:

. Rob and burgularize who you wish, and we will make a nominal effort to find you, but you're going to be pretty safe. Kill an ordinary citizen and we'll probably make the effort to find you, but the courts will only give you a minimal punishment. On the other hand we will vigorously protect you from any private citizens who wish to defend themselves from your predations, so you can practice your criminal career in relative peace thus giving us justification to continue sucking money out of the public trough. The one thing that will really get you in trouble is killing a cop so don't do that.

An acquaintence of mine shot two assailants who tried to tried to rob him killing one of them. He was not charged with anything, but the surviving assailant was sent to prison. What do you think would have happened if this occurred in NYC?

As far as quality of life, where I lived in the Bronx the large apartment buildings burned their garbage to reduce the volume and the hauling charges. It fit Boromir's description of Mordor from The Fellowship of the RIng "The very air you breath is a poisonous fume" consisting of buring garbage, dog sh!t and bus exhaust.

All of these government spending programs to "benefit the community" do no such thing. They merely take the hard earned dollars from the people who earned them and put them into the pockets of government bureaucrats. Any "benefits" that accrue are usually to a very narrow segment of the population. H. L. Mencken (or was it Bastiat) once wrote that "government is the mechanism where everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." This has been carried to the extreme by the NYC government. I have a business, and I would not relocate it to NYC if I could triple my gross because of all of the governmental harassment and hoops that you are forced to jump through by the petty tyrants who gravitate to government jobs. As bad as it is here, I can at least defend myself against unorganized criminals (I carry a handgun with a permit), and not spend 20% of my time keeping up with governmental paperwork.

As far as air quality goes, the EPA standards are arbitrarily set with absolutely no scientific basis whatsover. Just because the EPA says you have bad air doesn't make it so, but this is an entire separate topic that I don't want to get on to here.

I am looking forward to seeing Bresiger's reply.

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