This article I wrote appeared on the Newsmax.com web site on Monday, July 31, 2023.
Archive for July 2023
New York’s Billion Dollar Boondoggle – By George J. Marlin
July 25, 2023The following appeared on Monday, July 24, 2023, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:
During the Cuomo-Hochul years, vast amounts of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on private-sector job investments.
Money has gone to initiatives that in many cases fell short of the job goals, while others did not set any benchmark for assessing their success or failure.
One flop was Cuomo’s 2013 “Start-up New York.” Over $50 million was spent on television and radio commercials to promote that program, which grants 10 years of no taxes to approved technology companies that locate in zones near state and City University campuses. The results were de minimis.
The program failed because the scope was too limited, there was no regulatory relief and interested companies had to endure a laborious application process.
But the biggest boondoggle of all has been—the heavily hyped “Buffalo Billion.”
In 2013, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proudly announced an investment to build plants in Western New York that would create at least 3,000 jobs.
The key participant in the project, Buffalo Solar City, controlled by Elon Musk, initially received $750 million in state subsidies and an additional $200 million in 2017.
An audit, performed by the office of State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli in 2019, revealed that the Musk project did not come close to meeting expectations.
To rationalize the faltering investment, the state approved amendments to the deal that reduced “the number of jobs required … as well as making it unclear what and where the remaining jobs will be.”
The dumbing down of the deal, the comptroller concluded, would result, at best, in a paltry economic benefit of 54 cents for every dollar spent.
A laid-off Solar City employee, Dale Witherell, insisted in a letter to U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) that “New York State taxpayers deserved more from a $750 million investment. Tesla, he added “had done a tremendous job providing smoke and mirrors and empty promises to the area.”
Since DiNapoli’s report was issued in 2020, there has not been any real progress.
A July 17, 2023 front-page expose in the Wall Street Journal titled “New York’s $1 Billion Bet on Tesla Isn’t Paying Off” explains just how bad a deal Cuomo cut with Musk.
Musk’s claim that his plant would produce over 1,000 solar panel shingles a week has fallen far short of that goal. “The company is installing on average only 21 solar installations a week,” the newspaper said.
The WSJ report noted “the suppliers that Cuomo predicted would flock to a modern manufacturing hub never showed up. The only new nearby business is a Tim Horton’s coffee shop.”
Democratic state Sen. Sean Ryan, whose district includes Buffalo, told the Journal “It was a bad deal. A cautionary tale is you can’t give governors too much power to get on the phone with egotistical billionaires.”
After inspecting the facility, Ryan sadly concluded that the activity “didn’t look like full-scale manufacturing work.”
The chairperson of the state Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Liz Krueger, was also shocked by the poor return on investment. She said we “should invest in infrastructure and job training instead of spending billions of tax dollars pretending we’re very good being angel investors.”
E.J. McMahon, of the Empire Center for Public Policy, summed up the Cuomo debacle thusly: “In building and equipping the Tesla solar panel plant, the state became an investor in that project under the worst possible terms. In terms of shared direct cost to taxpayers, this may rank as the biggest economic development boondoggle in American history.”
One can only hope that state officials finally learn that “Big brother” type government bureaucrats should not be the persons to dictate where entrepreneurs should locate and risk investment dollars.
If Gov. Hochul and her Democratic colleagues are serious about jump-starting New York’s economic engine, they will employ genuine incentives—tax cuts and regulatory reforms—that have created lasting middle-class jobs in flourishing states like Texas and Florida.
N.Y. Paying a High Price for Coddling Criminals – By George J. Marlin
July 17, 2023This article I wrote appeared on the Newsmax.com web site on Monday, July 17, 2023.
Albany’s Latest Follies – By George J. Marlin
July 11, 2023The following appeared on Monday, July 10, 2023, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:
The good news is members of the state Legislature have gone home—hopefully for the remainder of the year.
However, the long road to adjournment is strewn with fiscal and policy debris.
First, there’s the state spending plan. In May, the governor and the Democratic-controlled legislature agreed to a record-breaking $229 billion budget, $9 billion more than Hochul’s January proposal.
Albany potentates showed little concern about the consequences of their actions: budget shortfalls of $5 billion in 2025 and in 2026, $8 billion.
Since the governor signed the budget into law, the numbers have only gotten worse.
Tax collections for the first quarter of the year were $4 billion less than expected. Not a good sign.
Then the revised state financial plan released in June acknowledged that deficit gaps have doubled. The state now projects the gap will be at least $9 billion in 2025 and $13 billion in 2026.
Then there is the job-killing policy Albany approved. Raising the minimum wage from $15 to $17 an hour, and then indexing to inflation, will hurt low-skilled employees. Significant wage increases always lead to layoffs, fewer hirings and price increases.
Next, the Legislature refused to renew the 421a tax abatement for new construction or renovation of multifamily housing projects. While leftists are moaning that there is a shortage of apartments, their inaction will hurt the growth of affordable housing.
On top of that, the Public Authorities Control Board, manned by the governor and legislative leaders, put off a vote to approve the building of the 900-foot-tall, 5 World Trade Center. The New York Post reported, “the culprit for the delay appeared to be state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.”
Cousins’ last-minute move not only angered Gov. Kathy Hochul, who blessed the plan, but hurt the cause for affordable housing.
Thirty percent of the 1.2 million square feet of apartments to be built at 5 World Trade would be affordable rentals.
So much for Sen. Cousins’ devotion to working class folks.
The teachers union bullied the Legislature into stifling the growth of charter schools. Instead of agreeing to Hochul’s recommendation to open 100 new ones, they approved legislation to revive 20 “zombie” charter schools that had closed.
Given the record of charters outperforming traditional public schools, the opposition to these alternative public schools, whose students are largely minorities, is disgraceful.
A recent report released by Stanford University Center for Research on Educational Outcomes revealed that New York’s charter schools are among the best-performing in the nation.
For example, the students attending “New York Achievement First” schools, “achieved 66 more days of learning in reading and 146 days of more learning in math than their traditional public school peers,” the report said.
Apparently, campaign contributions from the unions mean more than enhancing the educational prospects of minority students.
One scheme that backfired: The executive branch bid to get carte blanche power to negotiate a new gambling compact with the Seneca Nation of Indians in Western New York.
Although Hochul had recused herself from any dealings that might impact her husband’s Buffalo company, Delaware North—which operates 2,000 slot machines throughout the state—her staff was not restricted.
Hochul’s office, acting in secret, “kept private all the crucial details of what was negotiated with the tribe,” The New York Times reported.
After the state Senate passed the unread bill “nearly unanimously,” it stalled in the Assembly after local officials complained about the governor’s crass power play.
The chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, Manhattan’s Liz Krueger, reacting to the blowback, admitted “we sort of got hoodwinked.”
Although the fast-track bill has been held up, The Times concluded “Ms. Hochul has taken actions that align with Delaware North’s interests.”
Rickey Armstrong Sr., the president of the Seneca Nation agreed. In a statement, he said, “Gov. Hochul may have recused herself from negotiations, but apparently could not recuse her own staff from the expectation that they prioritize corporate interests, Delaware North first and foremost, over those of a sovereign Native Nation.”
Whatever happened to Hochul’s “transparency” pledge?
Looking back on Albany’s follies these past months I’ve come to appreciate more than ever Mark Twain’s quip, “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe when the legislature is in session.”
streetcornerconservative.com 