In response to Mr. Matthew Zeidman’s letter on the MTA’s fare increase, both he and Sen. Philips’ stances miss the point.
The MTA is the most mismanaged, corrupt and costly public transit system on earth, bar none.
As the New York Times reported in a shocking article about the MTA’s labor practices, “The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth” (December 17, 2017), underground construction in New York employs four times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia, Australia, or Europe.
Some people are simply paid to stand around and watch material being moved.
With a state comptroller who owes his job solely to union labor support, this outrage will never be investigated, and Mr. DiNapoli will content himself pursuing local library budgets instead of prime targets like this, or another infamously corrupted system, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who are both staffed with patronage positions doled out as favors by governors of both states.
They cost our state taxpayers billions more than they should.
Mr. DiNapoli is akin to a homegrown version of Ben Carson: he was appointed to a critical position in government without the slightest bit of experience in the sphere he was expected to manage.
Unfortunately, he can never act as an honest enforcer of the public’s right to an efficient and effective government, which is supposed to be his prime obligation to the electorate.
The MTA’s debt load stands at over 37 billion dollars, and as with all things in New York governance, reckless and unnecessary.
Debt service stands at 18 percent of its operating budget.
Before entertaining any fare hikes, it should be incumbent on our government to advocate cleaning up the MTA first.
Of course, it won’t happen thanks to the state of our politics. The game is rigged.
Things like efficient public transport, public education and law enforcement are good things to have to make our society work, and our state is a good place to live and do business.
That doesn’t excuse any of them from proper scrutiny to prevent them from becoming sinecures for rent seeking parasites at the taxpayer’s expense.
Donald Davret
Searingtown
