Reader Feedback 11.5.03

Doyle
budget taxes the poor

Jack
Doyle has done it again. Of all the ways to raise revenue, Doyle has chosen the
one method that hits working families and the poor the hardest. City Newspaper writer Jack BradiganSpula is absolutely
correct: low-income New Yorkers pay more of their income in sales tax than the
wealthiest New Yorkers pay (“Follies 2004: Hard Sell for the Sales Tax,”
October 29). If you are making $9.50 an hour, that extra 6/10 of a penny on the
dollar hurts you more every time you get in the checkout line than if you are
making six figures a year.

            Jack BradiganSpula is also correct that an income tax would be the
fairest way to raise the necessary revenue. The Metro Justice Revenue Fairness
Plan calls for instituting a temporary county income surcharge of 1 percent on
the tax that we already pay to the state. Since the state income tax is already
progressive (the more money you make, the higher your tax bracket), the
surcharge would be progressive. Our Revenue Fairness Plan would also attach an
additional 1 percent surcharge on people earning over $150,000 and another 1
percent on incomes over $200,000.

            Under the Metro Justice plan, a
household with the median family income in MonroeCounty would pay
just an additional $16.68. That’s almost 10 times less than Doyle would take
with his increase in the sales tax. Under our plan, a household with $80,000
income would pitch in $163.20 to help balance the budget. Doyle would charge
those folks four times that amount.

            The Metro Justice Revenue Fairness
plan is designed to capture a part of Bush and Pataki’s tax windfalls. Since
the wealthiest people in MonroeCounty received the
bulk of Pataki and Bush’s tax cut, our plan is designed so that MonroeCounty can take a
portion of that money to balance the current budget deficit. The Metro Justice
Revenue Fairness Plan would generously allow the wealthiest people in MonroeCounty to keep most
of their tax windfalls from the past three years. In fact, somebody earning
$625,000 would still be ahead by $14,254 after they paid their $9,953 to the
county. (Bush and Pataki’s tax cuts enriched people in this income range by
about $24,000 since 2000.)

            A local income tax is not a new idea
in this state. Yonkers and New York
City have income taxes. All that is required is for our local
assembly members and senators to sign off on it. Nor is a tax surcharge a
radical idea. Last year the state Assembly and Senate (with full Republican
cooperation) instituted a temporary tax surcharge to balance the state budget.

            The MonroeCounty legislature
overrode Doyle’s budget last year, and it can do it again this year. This time,
let’s make sure we don’t balance the budget on the backs of working families
and the poor.

            Jon
Greenbaum, St. Paul Street, Rochester (Greenbaum is an organizer with Metro Justice)

Doyle’s
sellout

The
old saying “sold down the river” is what comes to mind when I think of Jack
Doyle and the Republican Party in MonroeCounty.

            As a registered Republican, I am
heartsick to see what Doyle’s terms in office have done to our county. The County of Monroe has been sold
right out from under us and behind our backs.

            Do you suppose he was farsighted
enough to realize that by flat-taxing us for all these years he has forced the
collapse of county government as we have known it?

            When a person and party that
supposedly represent the best interests of the people sell us down the river,
can we hold them accountable and take them to court? Now that might be a way to
fix the deficit!

            Muriel
Hill Albright, Manitou
Road,
Spencerport

Johnson’s
record

Thank you for the thoughtful article endorsing Mayor Johnson
(October 22). You make a number of valid points. A few other points
should be taken into consideration, however.

            Rochester is the most
violent city in the state. If Giuliani can dramatically reduce homicides in a
city of 8 million, why can’t Johnson in a city 1/20 the size? The schools, over
which he certainly has some influence, face a huge deficit and have the worst
test scores in the state. Rochester has the 11th
worst child-poverty rate in the country.

            One would think that having been in
office 10 years, Johnson could do something to alleviate this situation. Mayor
Johnson has been the leading advocate of metro government (D&C July 27: “in Nashville saving money
is a no brainer”). When he runs for exec, he
says either:

            1) I never said it;

            2) I didn’t mean it;

            3) I couldn’t do it anyway.

            If Mayor Johnson thinks it’s a good
idea, he should stick to his guns and stop back-pedaling. We all know Rush
Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, etc. ignore facts that don’t fit their ideology.
Apparently City Newspaper does the
same thing.

            Eliott Spencer, Henrietta

Lucky
13

So,
a lenient judge has voided the prosecutions of 13 demonstrators who were, after
all, simply exercising their constitutional right to block access to public
buildings and impede traffic on the public highway, to get their little show on
TV (“Not Guilty Verdict,” Metro Ink, October 22). I mean, who else were they
trying to impress outside Rochester’s anonymous FederalBuilding? The local FBI agents?The US
Attorney? Some overstressed INS clerks? Yes sir, those folks deserve
a kick in the pants to send a message to the White House.

            The whole point, of course, was to
get arrested and get on TV. It’s not like handing out leaflets on the sidewalk
will make the 6 o’clock news. The
dust has settled and the prosecutions are pointless anyway, so I guess wiping
the slate clean is good for everybody. Let’s keep the “civil” in Civil
Disobedience. Never mind that Gandhi, Jefferson, King & Co. believed in
accepting the consequences of their actions, no matter what.

            But here’s an idea to save us all
this grief. Create Designated Militancy Zones (DMZ’s) at all local media
outlets (City Newspaper included)
where the keepers of the nation’s conscience can sit, squat, march or chant to
their heart’s content, under the watchful eyes of our great Free Press. If some
in the assembly feel inclined to block access to these facilities to make their
point, well, it’s just democracy at work. They get on TV, the media get
content, and we get on with our lives.

            David
Jones, Rochester

            Jack BradiganSpula responds: As defined by Gandhi, King, et
al., civil disobedience aims not at martyrdom (though sometimes that follows)
but at putting the law, government, or social system on trial — opening the
courts and media to views the powerful want to suppress. The “Ash
Wednesday 13″ may or may not have sought arrest as individuals, but they were united in petitioning their government to
stop a war of aggression. Ultimately they were exonerated because the
prosecutor could not show they disrupted operations at the FederalBuilding, the most
logical place for a local demonstration against national policy. Time will tell
if the demonstration, along with many others worldwide, disrupted the illegal
war-making.

On the road

Jean Considine wants RTS to “buy
new buses that are clean and comfortable” (The Mail, October 15). On
long-distance buses and trains she would like clean comfort and, on the buses,
also blankets, pillows, snacks, and soft drinks.

            In my
limited experience, RTS buses were very satisfactory; if buses on some routes
are dirty inside, passengers are responsible. My concern is what the buses do
to the outside air. Why hasn’t RTS begun to switch to biodiesel?
Surely planning for an underground transit center, with indoor air pollution
problems, calls for using biofuel. Buffalo
already has about 140 public buses using it, while thousands of places in Europe
do so.

            Train
service may vary, but I’ve had no complaints on round trips to Miami,
Washington, DC, and Toronto.
While trains may be better not only in Europe but in Turkey,
India, Japan,
et al, government support is the ticket.

            For me,
long-distance buses have been clean, comfortable, punctual, and often full.
Business has really increased since 9/11. For a trip to Kentucky
last April to attend my brother’s funeral, no bereavement air fare was
available, and the regular fare was three times the bus fare.

            On a Maine
trip this fall, I flew US Air to Boston
and took a Trailways bus to Bangor
and a Cyr bus 130 miles north. The Concord
buses on this route are very popular. They even have free snacks.

            Blankets
and pillows on long-distance buses are hardly necessary, as the temperature is
comfortable and passengers dress for the ride. Occasionally someone carries an
inflatable cushion or light throw. Surely individuals can best take care of
their own needs.

            Chance
encounters with people from other places and walks of life make bus travel
exciting. Of course, having time to enjoy the view, think, read, or write is
nice, too.

            Byrna Weir, Brighton

Writing to City

We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.

            Our
guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include
your street name and city/town/village. While we don’t restrict length, letters
of under 350 words have a greater chance of being
published. We do edit letters for clarity and brevity. And in general we don’t
publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the same writer more often than
once every three months.

This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2003.