It was my usual Sunday ritual: Long Island’s “best” lox at Roslyn’s Andel’s and a spectacular sesame flat-bagel at the one and only Bagel Boss”on Willis Avenue. Only this time, it was different. The usual $1.25 bagel was now $1.36.
I guess Bernake’s hold on inflation was not working out after all. Remember when a bagel was 25 cents? “Oh, no,” said my friend behind the counter. “The price of the bagel is still $1.25. But if you want it sliced, there is now a new 13 cent New York State Sales Tax added on.”
Please Governor Cuomo: raise the fee on my vanity plates, but don’t touch my bagels.
Which brings me to the fiscal cliff. Are you kidding? What a stretch? From a tax on a sliced bagel, to what? Can you think of anyone who has solved their debt crisis by raising taxes? Then maybe you can agree with me that to solve our financial problem, we must cut our spending as well.
Gov. Jerry Brown tried the higher-tax route and California is still bankrupt. Businesses are moving in droves to Texas. Maryland did the same. Their businesses just got up and moved across the border into the lower-taxed, more business-friendly State of Virginia. And, of course, how can we forget Illinois, the state having the lowest bond rating in the entire nation. Hello Wisconsin. Welcome to Ohio.
All these states had one thing in common. They tried to balance their budgets by raises taxes. In every case, it resulted in lower total tax revenue and an exit of thousands of their residents and companies to neighboring states.
How bad is Illinois? The Commercial Club of Chicago said recently that their state’s pension crisis “is now un-fixable.” Gov. Pat Quinn (D) who also tried to solve the problem over a year ago with a huge increase in the state’s Income and sales tax, now finally agrees with this business group.
Illinois has a $200 billion dollar debt. This state also has an unfunded pension liability of $95 billion dollars. In 2013, they will have to come up with 6 billion dollars of it. What can they do? The tax route failed. Besides going to President Obama for a huge Chicago bailout, who could they go to? The International Monetary Fund is trying to save the Euro. The European Bank is sending all their money to Greece. The U.N.? Germany? Opra? How about a loan from Warren?
For advise on how to solve their problem, Gov. Quinn should try speaking to Leonard Genova (Oyster Bay’s Deputy Superintendent) or Robert Rauff, CSEA’s Local 881 Union President. Y
This is what happened. That financially-strapped, small Long Island community, dug itself into a huge financial hole by spending and promising too much. Compared to Illinois, their’s was only a paltry” $13 million dollars. But, nevertheless, that was a huge amount for this small town. The choice was simple. Either immediately fire 200 workers or come up with a better solution. Working together, union and management forged a compromise solution and actually solved the problem.
Way to go, Oyster Bay.
In exchange for no layoffs, the union agreed to:
1- no salary hikes,
2- no step increases,
3- no longevity pay,
4- a small payroll reduction and
5- a retirement incentive program
which resulted in 90 workers
retiring this year.
And, here are the results :
Oyster Bay will save: $10.5 million dollars in salary and benefits and $8 million dollars in salary givebacks. And not one worker will be fired. Two-hundred Long Island jobs are saved !!
“The United States always does the right thing, but only after exploring every other possible course of action,” Winston Churchill.
Dr. Stephen Morris
North Hills
