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.
New York is being killed. Seriously. The only “business” that was left was Wall Street and the financial industry and look at what’s happening to them lately. New York is going to soon be on life support.
.....and then they dilute the voter pool in that Red State.
Oregon used to be a moderate state. So was Washington. New Hampshire anyone?
Yeah, these blue staters ruin their own habitat and then seek a newer fresher one to destroy with the same tax and spend, big government voting that brought them to hate their old homeland (while they still remain deeply attached to the old hometown and put it on their license plates or fly Mets flags on their cars in October).
Seen it. Not liking it. Most of them should be FORCED to stay where they are. There should be litmus tests to get a drivers license in a Red State involving the US Constitution and tax rates. The crazy woman who started the entire smoking ban movement in CA decided that CA was just too lousy for her so she moved to Las Vegas and she started the smoking nazi movement here!!! What the hell do we need this kind of immigration for? We’re better off with Mexican illegals because they are less likely to vote and at least they work.
It wasn’t that long ago that our former junior senator and now sos promised to bring 250,000 jobs to NYS.
Tell them that is what Adolf Coors said about American beer.
Why does almost everyone seem to assume that it's liberals who want to leave NY? See comment# 20.
Coors?
“Colorado Kool Aid” is what they call it in Texas.
Is it about money, or changing from red to blue as they did in NC by bringing in large groups of northern dems, who badmouthed republican policies?
No offense. But how can you not take up our sentiments when EVERY southern state lately turning Liberal Democrat has been by these sub=cultural transplants.
My most conservative county this last election turned my county seat over to a liberal tort lawyer promising larger benifits to seniors.
Voter fraud? Probably. But give me a break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Florida is the same way.
Have you ever been over on the Atlantic coast side?
They all seem to be from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
And trust me, they bring their voting habits with ‘em.
The wrong voting habits!
The liberal NYers moved here to CA and ruined it. We don’t need any more of their “exports.”
the left is not interested in these arguments and could care less. What they want is unfettered and total power even if it wrecks the economy. These people are about power, just like Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the people who run Detroit and Philadelphia etc.. Power for them, misery for us.
I am fine with bringing in conservatives, but I'll be damned if this state turns into another blue North Carolina.
My father in-law and mother-in-law were in that crowd back in the 1950s. FDR democrats. And then, almost my osmosis, the entire generation of my in-laws ended up migrating to Las Vegas. They all moved independently of each other and frequently without the others knowledge.
Florida got it bad too. I hate to say it but whenever I hear another Jewish retiree is coming to Las Vegas I secretly cringe. And I’ve been making a very nice living from that exact demographic (and I’m Jewish). They just won’t change. The younger generation we see a lot less political rigidity and insanity but the boomers are a waste of time and breathe. They’ll go to Mt. Sinai voting for whomever has a (D) after their name no matter how noxious.
(Why does almost everyone seem to assume that it’s liberals who want to leave NY?)....personal experience.
I’ve practiced real estate in LV for nearly a decade and I’ve seen a great cross section of the people who are looking to relocate. It’s still mostly people from NYC moving out of the state and not people from the less liberal rural areas who are fleeing. I wish it weren’t the case but even liberals want to the quality of life that us Red Staters have. And they love not having to pay income taxes. But they still vote for people who love abortion, hate guns, want to end talk radio and much of the other list of do-gooder policies.
And being in Las Vegas, I probably get an infinitely better pool of immigrants from NY than they do in FL where they are moving from one dark blue city to another (like Boca Raton, Miami, etc). They all love the no-income-tax benefits but then they vote for guys who lard up the government so that an income tax becomes inevitable. Sad. Unescapably sad.
NC has tanked in my opinion, but Asheville was declared little San Fran 15+ yrs ago when we had one of those strange mayors...and although there is a large Christian population it seems with all the northern transplants it was enough to go blue.
I believe SC is going to face some of this in future, with all the new manufacturing like BMW in Greer. Those libs from Michigan and other car plants that laid off will be headed to SC for jobs...
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