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WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. November 27,2009:
I have been so close to the solution, it had escaped me. But, it came to me this morning!
Attention Governor Paterson, State Senators and Assemblymen!
I am about to solve your problem.
And keep you in office.
You will go from goats to heroes and heroines faster than you can write a news release.
Why didn’t I think of this before! (Slapping myself on the forehead and asking myself why didn’t I think of this before…)
Can you say, can you consider a “Windfall Bonus Surcharge?”
Perhaps a “windfall profits surcharge?”
Lyndon Johnson did it. Richard Nixon did it.
You can do it.
That is the answer to New York State’s $3.2 Billion budget gap this year and the predicted $15 Billion gap the next two years.
Since the Wall Street ganovim are looking forward to millions in company bonuses for their “performance” this year buying back and forth from each other and promoting the “recovery,” I suggest that New York State take a leaf from what they did for their beloved Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Enact a surtax on Wall Street Bonuses.
A big surcharge, and make it renewable every year until the economy recovers.
Wall Street created the misery America is facing, let them at last do their share in helping New York State recover.
State Senators and Assemblypersons – you don’t want to get “Spano-ed” do you?
No matter how much your Wall Street and banker pals throw at you to keep things the way they are – if the Westchester County electorate can turn on good old Uncle Andy and throw him on the landfill by a 20% margin – it could happen to you.
The villains are smoking their cigars, scooping up the caviar like M & Ms, swilling the Chivas and the Absolut, and the Dom Perignon in long tall glasses up to here and laughing at us, counting their bonus millions to come.
You, Assemblymen and State Senators can put a stop to the biggest Grand Theft of all time –condoned by the Washington establishment and abetted by the administration—at least in New York State.
Simply slap a hefty 90% (whatever it takes) Bonus Surcharge on all Wall Street bonuses reported in 2009 tax year. Very simple really. And, if you’re really using your head, make it retroactive to 2008. But, that might be harsh.
Can you hear the howls of indignation?
I love the sound of Wall Street whining.
Or, since Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli knows the numbers – let him figure out what kind of percentage on the “Windfall Bonuses” would work to bail New York State out.
After all the Wall Street investment banks were bailed out, and now they are using the equity boost from their stock price rises the last year to pay bonuses to their hucksters who created the mess in the first place. Not only that, but they are not lending — the bankers are holding back the economy! Let’s put that money they are going to pay themselves in bonuses for doing such a “good job” back to work for New York State.
Does it seem fair that we must cut hospital workers, police and fire personnel, not pay cost of living raises to workers with the disabled, lay off state employees, and cut aid to education when all the greed boys and girls can “give a little back” with friendly New York State persuasion?
The recent public relations contribution by Goldigger Sacks, was a transparent public releations ploy.
After all Washington is already talking about a tax surcharge on all of the rest of us to pay for the Ahfganistan troop build-up according to this dispatch from the McClatchy papers:
Steven Thomma
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
WASHINGTON Abraham Lincoln levied the country’s first income tax to help pay soldiers and buy rifles for the Civil War.
Franklin Roosevelt raised taxes as well, to help pay for World War II.
Lyndon Johnson tacked a temporary 10 percent surtax on top of normal income taxes to help pay for the Vietnam War.
Now, as President Barack Obama prepares to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan, the pending escalation is raising the question of how the country should pay the growing bill.
Some top Democrats in Congress propose a surtax starting in 2011. Conservatives call it a political ploy from lawmakers who felt no need to raise taxes to pay for things they wanted, such as the economic stimulus package. Economists say that more tax increases could hurt the economy just as it starts to rebound.
Obama hasn’t said what he wants to do. He has, however, signaled that he no longer can afford – economically and perhaps politically – to simply add the cost of the war to the soaring federal debt, as his predecessor did.
For the first time in nine meetings over months of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy, Obama on Monday invited Budget Director Peter Orszag to sit in, a sign that the White House was weighing the budget consequences of a troop surge that could cost a trillion dollars over 10 years.
I think the legislature, instead of balancing the budget on the backs of us as they did when they cut our STAR EXEMPTIONS last year by 11% to make us pay for their own restoration of school aid to us – a fact unreported by any news outlet except the CitizeNetReporter, I think the Wall Street ganovim need to pay their fair share
Instead of balancing the budget by cutting the STAR EXEMPTION more this year to sneak through a tax increase, please sock it to the analysts, traders and CEOs who are laughing at us.
Why hasn’t any other editorial board suggested this? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
The Wall Street gangs with their tassel loafers, silk bandanas and dollar sign tattoos, and switchblade stilettos will just have to do without the new benz, boat, multiple ski vacations, sunbronzing in the Bams, or twenty-oning in Vegas. I know that would be a sacrifice for them.
What do you think, Albany?
Do you have the guts to do it?
The surcharge on bonuses, or a windfall profits scythe?
It’s your only shot to get reelected.
I don’t think so.
Show us you’re fair.
Show us you’re intelligent.
Show us you really want to hold the ganovim accountable.
Show some leadership.
Have the Comptroller draw up a surcharge structure by Monday and let’s spoil Wall Street’s Christmas.
Also – can we put a surcharge on the Wall Street Holiday Parties,too?
Or will you ignore this obvious solution, saying it would not be fair? You don’t want to jeopardize the economy recovery by penalizing Wall Street.
What recovery?
Your state has no money.
Go get some from Wall Street.
They have it all.
Take it from them.
They created it.
They used taxpayers’ trust to create it.
Let’s have a taxpayer dividend, a taxpayer bonus, o.k.?
Instead of the property tax increases the cities, the feckless school districts, and the bloated counties have in store for us, let Wall Street bail us out for a change.
The ganovim will never miss it.
And they shouldn’t if they have any class.
But they don’t
The ganovim have no class, they just think they are better than every one else.
But they’re worse.
s
