Posted on 02/12/2009 12:10:29 PM PST by neverdem
I’m thinking we should move to South Carolina. No, not me and the family. The whole city of Yonkers.
In June 2008, longtime Yonkers manufacturer Stewart EFI left the city, taking with it a few hundred manufacturing jobs. Then, a few weeks ago, the Precision Valve Corporation, one of Yonkers’s largest employers and a company founded in the city, announced that it was moving to the Palmetto State. Precision Valve vice president Bob Reto explained the relocation delicately: “The decision was driven by the need to operate under the greater efficiencies afforded in South Carolina.” Mayor Phil Amicone, by contrast, didn’t mince words: Yonkers “could not surmount the costly economics of doing business in New York State.”
Overall per-capita government spending in New York State is now the fourth-highest in the nation—nearly 50 percent above the national average. That’s a problem in good times; in the current economic climate, it’s a disaster. Examples of waste abound. New York spends more per pupil on education than any other state, yet it ranks near the bottom third in most measurements of student performance. Likewise, New York spends double the national average on Medicaid, yet lags badly in the quality of its health care.
The cash to fund this waste, of course, comes out of New York taxpayers’ pockets. When I ran for the New York State Senate last year, I’d remind audiences that here in Westchester, we live in the highest-taxed county in the highest-taxed state in the nation. New York’s personal-income and real-estate taxes are the highest in the country, while its business taxes are the second-highest. As a result, New York has seen a steady emigration of citizens and employers for years. In the current downturn, that emigration could turn into a stampede.
Yet as unchecked spending and a crushing tax burden destroy the Empire State, what solutions do we hear from our elected leaders in Albany? Governor David Paterson, while proposing token spending cuts, has called for over $3 billion in new “revenue actions.” Under his proposals, New Yorkers can expect to pay more for everything from haircuts to iTunes downloads to soda pop. Ever the populist, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver proposes that we “tax the rich”—or at least those he defines as such. What the Speaker really means is: Let’s tax the people who start and own businesses, create jobs, and pay salaries. Of course, the “rich” have a simple solution to tax increases: move to South Carolina, where there are “greater efficiencies” in doing business.
Precision Valve was founded by Bob Abplanalp, the Bronx-born son of an immigrant machine-shop owner. After building his business, Abplanalp joined other businessmen in founding the Hudson Valley Bank, also in Yonkers. Today, the Hudson Valley Bank is one of those increasingly rare independent banks focused on serving their local communities. For decades, Abplanalp and his family quietly but generously supported countless local charities, from the Yonkers Boy Scouts to a shelter for pregnant women. In the mid-1970s, Abplanalp all but single-handedly saved his old high school, Fordham Prep, as it struggled to keep its doors open. Today, Fordham Prep thrives, teaching a new generation of children, many the sons of immigrants themselves. Such are the “rich” who, Silver insists, must pay their “fair” share by turning their money over to the barons of Albany.
Instead of figuring out how to dig deeper into our pockets, New York leaders need to slash taxes, halt decades of wasteful spending, and make the state an attractive place to do business again. The current crisis demands a hard look at every line in New York’s bloated budget and dramatic cuts in unnecessary, mismanaged, and outdated programs. Likewise, Albany must eliminate the countless mandates, laws, and regulations that increase burdensome taxation and create additional inefficiency in local government.
As businesses like Precision Valve leave Yonkers, it’s worth remembering that over the last several years, New York has seen a net loss of close to 200,000 residents annually. Yonkers is, coincidentally, a city of approximately 200,000. What I suggested jokingly is, in fact, already happening: every year, Yonkers—or its equivalent in population, anyway—abandons New York.
John M. Murtagh, an attorney, is presently serving his second term as a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York State’s fourth-largest city.
by John M. Murtagh
Excellent piece.
New York is but a small example of what Obama is doing to the nation.
Look at all the money leaving stocks, and soon to follow- businesses- on wall street’s markets.
STAY OUT OF PA!
AND YES, I AM YELLING!
I couldn’t figure out how many are leaving but if they are the libs that have messed up their own state...STAY OUT OF TEXAS. Conservatives are welcome, of course.
It might help the Republicans to run some advertising about people leaving areas of Europe, Asia etc. etc. to come to America for opportunity. Then mention that people leave high TAX low Value states for opprtunity. There are plenty of auto jobs in Alabama, South Carolina and Texas - but not in Michigan and OHIO. If they don’t tell the Sheepal they will never learn, because it hasn’t gotten through in NY, Calif or Penn.
Ya’ll are welcome to come down, but just don’t bring the politics down with you. I’m in the most conservative part of conservative state and I’m finally making some damn good money. I want to keep it that way.
Yea, they leave NY & the Northeast & mess up the new place where they settle with their crap.
I’m certain your new neighbors will love another Yankee in their midst.
In South Carolina, I’m considered a Yankee, and I’m North Carolina born and bred.
The only viable relocation that has been considered personally.
TEXAS!
State property tax law before aggressively pursuing land ownership is a prudent endeavor however....
Texas is hard to look away from financially and comfort wise in the long run, IMO.
Considering MY present demise, I guess I'm just biased...
Please tell them to stay where they are I plan on moving to South Carolina as soon as the house sells and not to be cruel but I would prefer it wasn't filled with New Yorker complaining that they can't get good pizza and everything is not like it was in the city.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Unfortunately, good intentions or not, the mentality of these liberals moving out just Sh@ts in every next they move to.
If you get outside the cities it’s okay. Down East, where I’m from, it’s still relatively uncontaminated—except on the coast. A lot of Yankees are moving out around here because they’re finding out they can’t maintain households on $10/hr.
AND leaving their life savings, wives and children behind. We call it the “Yankee Trap”: they sell their bloated homes up north, move here, buy a house, can’t get an adult job, lose their families and homes, move the hell back, divorced, poorer and wiser.
The Yankee Trap Process, brought to them by the local real estate industry. Hah!
The liberal areas of the country should be fenced in so they cant leave and mess up the conservative areas. Their own politics created this mess...they voted for the creation of these messes.
It's the tyranny of property tax that makes me ornery in MN.
TX is the lesser of evils. : - )
John M. Murtagh, Conservative, Republican
His family was bombed by Weathermen, and you think he's enamoured with the left? That makes a lot of sense. /s
Why does almost everyone seem to assume that it's liberals who want to leave NY?
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