Political convention speeches are meant to be emotional and rhetorical. They’re meant to fire up the base, and President Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech last night was no exception. PHOTO COURTESY STEVE JURVETSON Barack Obama That said, there was still a moment in Obama’s speech where the rhetoric really surprised me, pleasantly so. It […]
taxes
Posted inNews & Opinion
NEWS BLOG: Romney, release your darn tax records
Mitt Romney and his Republican backers are trying to pass his tax-records shell games off as transparency. This is the same party whose members have been passing legislation requiring multiple forms of photo identification to vote, but don’t want us to know the financial history of their candidate. Romney has not broken any laws by […]
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New proposal for Greece Ridge tax breaks
If all goes smoothly, the owners of Greece Ridge Mall will get tax abatements for renovating the mall’s former Bon-Ton space. Today, the county Industrial Development Agency’s board gave provisional approval to a payment in lieu of taxes agreement for the project. Under the 25-year deal, the Wilmorite subsidiary that owns the mall will pay .6 […]
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NEWS BLOG: Taxes, smaxes- paying for health care
I’ve loved watching Mitt Romney wrestle with the issue of taxes and the Affordable Care Act. First his campaign staff said Romney doesn’t consider the ACA’s penalty a tax; then yesterday, Romney himself said he does. That means, of course, that he was perfectly happy to raise taxes in Massachusetts for something he thinks his […]
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Reader feedback 8.20.03
Ginna’s future, taxing ‘little people,’ City’s writers
Posted inNews & Opinion
Getting fiscal: municipalities beat each other
This being election season, real issues are as scarce as hen’s dentures. Sound bites degrade to dum-dum bullets: “I’ll create jobs,” “I’ll fight crime.” Meanwhile, the manifest wounds lie open. Society has fallen on barbed wire; every small movement causes another cut. And the issue that cuts most deeply on the domestic front — economic […]
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Reader feedback 9.4.02
Whose rights? In “Taking the FIF” (August 14), Jack Bradigan Spula presents statistics that, like all statistics, leave unanswered questions. For example: “The NYCLU report shows that drug activity accounts for 55 percent of FIFs; no other ‘context’ accounts for more than 10 percent.” And [quoting SUNY Brockport professor Eileen O’Brien]: “‘Drug use data consistently […]
