This article I wrote appeared on the Newsmax.com website on Tuesday, September 24, 2024.
Archive for September 2024
Developer Fought Bureaucracy to Rebuild Ground Zero, and Won – By George J. Marlin
September 24, 2024Never-ending Incompetence at MTA – By George J. Marlin
September 17, 2024The following appeared on Monday, September 16, 2024, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:
On Sept. 12, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released a report assessing the MTA’s “capital needs and funding scenarios.”
Its findings should surprise no one. To enact the overwhelming list of capital improvement needs, the report concludes “The MTA must find billions in new funds even as the state tries to resolve the $15 billion gap in revenues created by the pause on congestion pricing.”
Essential capital projects include:
- $1.78 billion for repairs of line structures, depots and yards.
- $2.75 billion for normal replacement of railcars and buses.
- $5.65 billion for accessibility and signal modernization.
- $5.23 billion for the expansion of the Second Avenue subway.
- $5.67 billion for administrative, communication and power modernization.
The MTA’s total capital needs during the next five years range “from $57.8 billion to $93.2 billion, with a midpoint of about $75 billion. But whether the MTA’s capital program comes in at the low end or the high end of that estimate, it will need significant amounts of new funding….”
So how is the MTA going to fund the much-needed capital projects?
First of all, taxpayers should not rule out the resurrection of congestion pricing.
Gov, Kathy Hochul’s surprise announcement in June to suspend the congestion pricing that was slated to commence on July 1 was a political decision — not a financial one.
Hochul’s June 5 statement that “I cannot add another burden to working, middle-class New Yorkers or create another obstacle to our continued economic recovery” was empty political rhetoric. She did not want to be blamed for voter backlash against Democratic congressional candidates at the polls in November.
However, it appears she has been scheming to bring back congestion pricing post-election day.
The New York Post reported Aug. 18 that “Governor Hochul is considering proposing a lower congestion toll for Manhattan and nixing it all together for municipal workers such as cops and teachers.”
In other words, Hochul has bought off the municipal unions that had been suing the MTA—cops, firemen, teachers, ambulance crews—who commute to their workplaces in the zone south of 50th Street in Manhattan.
And I won’t be surprised if there are additional exemptions, for example, medical professionals.
But tax revenues from the modified congestion pricing will not be enough to fund MTA capital projects.
The DiNapoli report suggests that fare and toll increases over the next five years could be between 13% and 18%. It also points out that more state and city tax dollars will have to be turned over to the MTA. The state’s contribution for the 2025-2029 Capital Plan is estimated in the range of $8.8 billion to $29 billion. The city’s contribution could range from $2 billion to $4 billion.
But before raising fares and tolls, maybe the MTA should address the direct causes of its soaring costs: overly generous union contracts that cost $7.8 billion annually, huge cost overruns, prevailing wage laws that force MTA contractors to pay above market rates to the tune of $95 per hour, and fare beaters.
The MTA recently admitted that last year it lost $600 million to fare evasion. (The comptroller puts it at $700 million.) More than 48% of bus passengers do not pay their fares—up from 18% in 2018. Nearly 1 million commuters a day get a free ride.
This is even too much for The New York Times. Pamela Paul wrote in her Sept. 6 Times column, “Taking the City for a Ride:” “The truth is passengers don’t pay because they can get away with it. The hottest truth is that the city lets them.” Pamela concluded: “The best resolution is more policing.” (For The Times to call for more policing is an incredible acknowledgement.)
If the MTA cracked down on fare beaters, the increased revenue would contribute significantly to salvaging the MTA Capital funding problem.
But will that happen? I doubt it. It is easier to stick fare-paying working class commuters with the tab for the MTA’s incompetence.
Want Chaos? Scripted Far-Left Puppets? Vote Harris-Walz – By George J. Marlin
September 9, 2024This article I wrote appeared on the Newsmax.com website on Monday, September 9, 2024.
Can Harris Beat Trump? – By George J. Marlin
September 2, 2024The following appeared on Monday, September 2, 2024, in the Blank Slate Media newspaper chain and on its website, theisland360.com:
The Democratic National Convention, which was more hype than substance, attempted to portray its nominee, Kamala Harris, as a joyful challenger rather than an incumbent. Harris was scripted to come across as the candidate of change and the working class.
As for Harris’s incumbent colleague, President Joe Biden, he was permitted to speak outside of the primetime period. Immediately afterwards, his party banished him to the dust bowl of history.
In her acceptance speech, Harris presented herself to the nation as a nonideological centrist who would be tough on crime, tackle the inflation problem, and control the border by—get this—building a wall.
Apparently, the Democrats are hoping voters do not hold Harris accountable for the Biden-Harris agenda. They hope to shove the past three and a half years down the Orwellian “memory hole.”
Democrats hope the election will not be a referendum on the Biden-Harris record, but a choice election based on personalities.
Yet, despite all the convention’s hocus-pocus, I don’t believe the voters will give Harris a pass and excuse the last three and a half years.
Let’s face it: the vice president stood next to Biden at every public policy announcement. The president constantly referred to the Biden-Harris Administration.
Harris boasted she was the last person in the room when Biden made important decisions—including the one that led to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
Harris has been the leading cheerleader for the Biden Administration and the defender of its economic and spending policies, which led to rapid inflation.
She has often proclaimed that “Bidenomics” has been working and has also stated, time and again, that the president was mentally in top form.
Let’s not forget her claim that the southern border is secure. Considering there have been 8.3 million border encounters since Biden and Harris took office, versus 2.4 million under Trump, that’s a tough one to swallow.
As for being a moderate, Harris’s public record contradicts that claim. As a US Senator and candidate for president in 2020:
- Harris supported the elimination of private health insurance.
- Harris sponsored the radical multi-trillion-dollar Green New Deal legislation.
- Harris opposed the building of the border wall, calling it Trump’s “medieval vanity project.”
- Harris supported a ban on fracking.
- Harris supported the California referendum that reduced penalties for shoplifting. (Stealing under $900 is okay in California.)
- Harris called for the defunding of police departments.
- Harris stated it should not be a crime to enter the US illegally.
- Harris supports the Biden plan to destroy the Supreme Court’s independence.
- Harris supports the elimination of the US Senate filibuster.
Harris is trying to backtrack on some of those policy positions and trying to hide the fact that she is a San Francisco radical who was rated the most left-wing member of the Senate in 2020. (Yes, she was more extreme than Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.)
But will voters buy the new and improved Harris?
Here’s why I don’t think so.
Four years ago, Joe Biden, who had a 50-year record as a liberal moderate, promised the American people he would govern as a centrist.
However, after assuming office, he immediately moved to the far left to appease the AOC wing of the Democratic Party. Unlike Biden, Harris has been a lifelong leftist. And I don’t believe the American public is naive enough to buy her sudden road to Damascus conversion to moderation. They will see it for what it is—a smoke screen to get her through the election.
As for Donald Trump—he can beat Harris if he holds her accountable for the failed domestic and global policies of the Biden-Harris Administration and articulates his vision for another term in office.
If Trump hopes to win, he must—in Michelle Obama’s words—“go high when they go low.”
But, if he snaps at the Democratic Party’s bait and focuses on personalities and name-calling, he will surely lose in November.
streetcornerconservative.com 