[Illisezek]

"The problem with New York is that it's divided between an intensely urban area and an intensely rural region whose agendas are inherently incompatible."

Yes, you could definitely say that. Up until a couple of years ago, I used to drive a tractor-trailer into NYC, delivering food and paper products to Wendy's and Popeye's in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Many of them get their supplies from a warehouse up here, in Broome County. I could feel the extra tension just going across the George Washington. Better get this mostly done before sunrise. A tractor-trailer is not where you want to be, on many NYC streets, during the day.

Having country roads at the end of my driveway, for my motorcycles, and snowmobile trails connecting to my back yard, for my Ski-Doo and heating my house with wood as I write this, I can say I wouldn't move to New York City at gunpoint.

"There is little doubt among economists that New York City carried the economy of the state in the 1990s. I have yet to see signs pointing to any sort of revival upstate."

That's just what I'm talking about with the stock market. The '90's contained the technology, and dot com bubble. For the past ten years, New York's budget has depended too much on Wall Street. The technology and dot com heavy NASDAQ went to 5048. New York's security-industry employees paid billions in extra taxes to Albany, definitely more than their share. That seemingly ended in March of 2000, with the Pennfield Jackson ruling over Microsoft being a "monopoly." Within weeks, the NASDAQ fell to little more than half of what it was and it didn't hit bottom 'till it hit 1111, sometime in late 2002.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^IXIC&t=5y

Hope that link works. This year, it's been bouncing above and below 2000. It's been a so so year in the stock market. It was in the news, last week, that security-industry employees don't even know what their year-end bonuses will be yet. ...or what they'll pay in state taxes. I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that NYC just pays an extra, unswerving, $3.5 billion annually to Albany.

"So $5.6 billion for 1.1 million students in the City amounts to, what, $5,100 per student per year? $11,000 per student per year is just about what New York City pays, too."

Maybe it's hard to say exactly what New York spends per student since it varies more in New York than anywhere else, from district to district. Broome County is guilty of some waste of its own. We have twelve school districts, with twelve different super-intendants, for a county with 170,000 people. Our district has always figured in maintenance and I would say our schools turn out good graduates, but even our schools spend too much.

The newspaper articles I wanted to cite wanted me to log in. I thought it's closer to $13,000, with the extra $5,100 on top of that. Whatever the number is exactly, you have us safely outdistanced now, and Mayor Bloomberg doesn't seem to want to be much help. Governor Pataki is, at least, trying to address accountability, like we have upstate.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1292299/posts

"For the city to fund even a portion of this $5.63 billion would require us to cut after-school programs, close libraries and make severe cuts to essential city services, even in the area of public safety, Such actions would harm the very children this lawsuit is designed to help." Mayor Bloomberg's attitude.

"We are particularly concerned that the recommendations appear to reject any type of real reform and fail to overhaul the current accountability system, while recommending a substantial infusion of new spending," Kevin Quinn, reflecting Governor Pataki's attitude.

"And which municipality contributes more to the overall economy of the state, NYC or Buffalo?"

I think Buffalo is on life-support, with all the heavy industry they have lost in the last fifty years. Don't know if I can speak for them. NYC contributes more to the overall economy, but there is something else in this equation that I don't think I can prove:

We have a second home, albeit a mobile home, near Lancaster, PA. My wife works at a couple different hospitals in the Philly area and the trailer saves her a four hour commute each way. The money is twice as good down there. Pennsylvania is still a relatively low tax state, although Liberal Governor Rendell is trying to change that. Upstate NY attitude is very much like most of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has a 3% maximum income tax. Pennsylvania has a $21 billion overall state budget!

New York spends almost exactly twice as much on Medicaid alone as Pennsylvania spends on everything. New York has a 7% income tax with tons of mandates for its counties. New York City has a budget more than twice as big as all of Pennsylvania and Mayor Bloomberg doesn't have any money...or "monies" as he puts it.

This is a chronic, long term problem for upstate. It is my firm belief that, without the downstate influence, upstate New York would have a business environment much more like low tax Pennsylvania than like high tax New Jersey, like it does now. Pennsylvania has some problems but they're nothing like New York's.

How's this for a conundrum? We have a power plant, right in the middle of Binghamton that spends most of its time turned off. You can see it from route 17. We pay 50% more for electricity in NY than we do in PA. The power plant turns on when electrical demand in NYC goes up and we sell it to you! Yet, most of our industries that have left our area say they left because of high taxes and high utility rates! Go figure.

Scott
Ssaund9084@aol.com

It's 5:00 in the morning. I am tired and will come back later.