Lift mandates to lift economy
Good things sometimes come wrapped in bad packages. Republicans have been wrestling with ways to justify support for the American Health Care Act, a bill that would take away health care for millions of Americans without adequate assurance of replacement. Two New York congressmen came up with a not-so-clever idea, inserting a clause in the bill mandating that New York be required to pay for all Medicaid services. It would have shifted $2.9 billion in Medicaid costs from counties to the state. That is only one-quarter of the money the state has spent to foster job growth, unsuccessfully.
Lifting a significant mandated cost on local governments would lower local property taxes and, presumably, boost the economy. It’s a good idea wrapped in a bad one, kind of like a lollipop neatly stuck into a pile of horse dung.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in typical political polemicist fashion, attacked the bill for what it was: a not-so-thinly veiled mandate from the feds to state government. When the feds mandate the states to do something its way, that is a no-no. But when the state does the same to local governments, that’s apparently OK. Except it is not.
If we are to truly revive the Upstate economy, every sane good government advocate will tell you that tackling state mandates is essential. Without addressing high local property taxes, we are simply tinkering around the edges of the problem. Fiddling, while Rome, Utica, Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester continue to decline.
There have been much-publicized and fanciful steps taken to give the illusion of progress, for example, Cuomo’s well-intended but failed Business Enterprise program. Programs like the “Buffalo Billion” make for great press releases and photo ops, but have shown themselves to be little more than flashes in the pan. They have been ballyhooed in commercials on TV, at a cost of many many millions of taxpayer dollars, to make you think that a renaissance is underway Upstate. Think again, because all economic indicators point in a different direction. and cItizens continue to vote with their feet, as population losses mount.
Without addressing high local property taxes, we are simply tinkering around the edges of the problem.
One recent commercial by Empire State Development went so far as to tout the fact that when (the unknown actress/ spokesperson) goes into a coffee shop in Upstate New York, “People at my local coffee shop know my name.” Really? So, does that mean If you go to a regular coffee shop in Brooklyn, nobody knows your name?
This was one of the latest in a series of silly ads intended to burnish the image of Upstate New York as a great place to live and work, implicitly encouraging denizens of metropolitan New York to move here. How insulting. Others must have thought so, too, as it has now been replaced by a shinier one touting the rebuilding of Upstate airports. Such ads are little more than feel-good Madison Avenue gauze being applied to stem the oozing and the bleeding. It is just too patronizing and phony.
More than 800,000 people have left New York state in the past six years, more than any other state’s outflow. We are bleeding population and experiencing molasses-like growth in job opportunities, despite ESD’s expensive efforts.
New York is not getting enough bang for its buck. In the past 16 years, New York has spent nearly $12 billion -- four times as much as Texas -- on “megadeals,” subsidies of $50 million or more. The two states closest to us are Michigan and Louisiana, which spent $9 billion each. What we are doing is not only not working, but creates problems in its own right involving cronyism and contract bid-rigging that have now become the subject of a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, real reform lags, needed tax relief is sidelined, and Upstate keeps sliding down the slippery slope.
Tweaking things at the edges just doesn’t cut it. As well-intentioned as our governor’s Upstate development initiatives may be, he is, in effect, barking at the moon. A more effective approach would be to listen to local government officials who are in the trenches every day, and partner with them in real reform. Then and only then will real progress be made. This should be a major topic in the 2018 gubernatorial election campaign.