[AntonioMQ]

Okay, forgive me if this sounds kind of rambling...

"SUNY Binghamton - which is directly/indirectly the economic engine of Vestal and most of the area south of the river - and SUNY Binghamton is 80% downstate attended."

Yeah, Like I said, Binghamton University, which is really in Vestal, is the one big item that people here point to and say New York City does us some good. I used to work part-time as a Tattooist in the '90's, up here, and I tattooed a good many of them. They couldn't get one down there 'till '97. I'd like to think SUNY is an even deal for them. They get a good price on an education. We have a developer building a huge addition to the dorms for them, just over the hill at the old Vestal Plaza. Almost sent my older daughter there, but she wanted to go to a private college in Albany instead.

Our proximity, also brings in a lot of other City folks though. The rock bottom real estate prices, mostly in Binghamton, Johnson City, or Endicott itself, bring in the Section 8 Housing Voucher demographic. These are usually single parents and the kids overwhelm local high schools. Kids getting tattooed for their 18th birthday used to say the "City" kids weren't up to grade level and they would move in and try to disrupt and take over the place.

Wish I had kept the newspaper article, now, that I am writing this but, the new Broome County Jail has a sizable NYC population. Just before election day, the Broome County Legislature tried to allocate county money so that we could repatriate as many New York City residents as we could. Apparently, many of our criminal demographic have prior warrants in the City, and money to repatriate them has recently dried up in the state budget. The allocated money wasn't to send them back to Syracuse, or to Utica or to Jamestown. The newspaper specifically referred to New York City. They only managed to set aside $56,000 which wasn't enough.

"The real problem in upstate is the failure to replace lost manufacturing jobs."

True, the real problem with upstate, is its inability to replace manufacturing jobs. I remember when Broome County felt that its economy was recession proof because we had so many companies that were defense industry oriented. Since before a time where I can remember (I'm 43), residents around here seemed apathetic to how New York went it's own way with taxing and spending because we were still getting ours from the Cold War economy. Oh, yeah, there was also Endicott Johnson, our shoe industry.

Now, ten years later, I think a lot of them are still apathetic. It goes back to the post that started this thread; New York does have an absurd overall tax burden. We have a radio talk show host up here that just brought up some statistics that puts New York either first or second, or last or second to last, whichever is worst, in any category you want.

Tax Freedom Day April 27, the second to last in the nation, in 2004, and sixteen days after the National Tax Freedom Day.

New York's business climate ranks 49'th in the nation. The study took income taxes, corporate income taxes, sales taxes and tax complexity into consideration. We're behind all our neighboring states and way behind Pennsylvania, whom I mentioned earlier.

Our State/Local tax burden is the highest in the nation, about 12.9%, way above the national average of 10.0%.

New York's property taxes are among the highest at about $1333 per person.

New York has the highest gasoline tax, at about 32 cents per gallon, and the 2nd highest cigarette tax, at $1.50 per pack.

http://taxfoundation.org/newyork/index.html

New York is also the second highest when it comes to paying its state and local government public employees. On average of $51,445, 26% more than the national average. But, on the other hand, we have 62 of them for every thousand people in New York, 14% more than the national average to make it more even expensive.

http://www.bcnys.org/whatsnew/2004/1...loyrelease.htm

One could wonder why any Fortune 500 company, or any manufacturer, would want to bother with this mess, but I guess the numbers all say that there has been healthy growth downstate. That's hard to figure, since the taxes are even higher down there.

According to a recent article in our newspaper, which I can't cite because our local paper's web site sucks, New York City is fortunate to have a good reputation going for it.

"New York City, now home to about 2.9 million people born outside the country, had far more foreign-born citizens than any other American city. They account for almost 40 percent of the city's population. And confounding some expectations, most of the immigrants soon become productive citizens. As the wave of immigrants broke over the city, welfare rolls, already down dramatically from a decade earlier, stayed down. A strong case can be made that the most important difference between New York City's dynamic economy and the relatively lifeless status of many upstate cities is the continued attraction of the city for overseas immigrants. Despite its high taxes, strangling regulations and choking traffic, New York City retains its reputation overseas as a place where hard work can lead to a better life."


On another angle about New York taxes, take IBM; I don't know how long ago you lived here, dtolman, but if it was within the last ten years, you could remember IBM using their clout, and challenging their assessment and taxes, while they downsized their presence here. Yet they are have built a new $2 billion computer chip manufacturing plant in East Fishkill.

We haven't had one company show an interest in our area, anymore, unless they can have "Empire Zone" status. We have had some growth in manufacturing and warehouse/trucking industry, using these zones, but most companies see Empire Zones as a temporary tax gimmick that makes us temporarily competitive with other states. IBM must have had sort of similar, permanent deal to stay interested. Otherwise, we just aren't a competitive state.