What Were They Thinking?

I haven’t brought myself to read New York’s new budget, but I have read some of the overviews in various media outlets. That probably puts me on a par with most of our elected officials, who likely didn’t have time or courage to read it before they voted on it, and may not have had any reason to read it since it was passed, since there’s little they can do to change it, even if they were so inclined.

Some of the things I’ve read are encouraging. For example, expansion of our bottle bill legislation to include water bottles is a good thing. Walk through any office, down any street, or in any park and you’re sure to see plenty of empty or partially empty discarded bottles lying around; I usually get a couple each week in our front yard. Now, with a nickel deposit on these bottles as well as soda bottles, we’ll not only be helping the environment and the beautification of my yard, but we’ll be providing additional economic stimulus to the folks who collect the empties for cash.

I also support reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws . When the mandatory minimum sentence for selling drugs is on a par with that of some murder charges, something’s wrong. I have a hard time believing that long-term incarceration, the cost of which we non-drug selling taxpayers have to bear, is more effective than treatment or shorter jail sentences. Some day we can have a conversation about legalization...

School aid is something in the budget (state and federal) that defies comprehension. It seems clear that reform is needed when one district receives an 11.51% increase when another just a few miles down the road gets only 4.58% . This is particularly true when the district receiving the greatest percentage of aid is a suburban one where the average home is worth about $145,000 and the average household income is around $65,000 and the district receiving less aid is the urban one, with an average home value and income of just about 50% of the other district, something like 1500 vacant homes, a deteriorating business district and a very high number of tax-exempt or -reduced properties. Something is wrong with this picture.

It’s particularly more galling when the same State Assembly that passed the budget with school aid disparities such as the one above, also passed a bill barely a week after the budget was approved called the Dignity for All Students Act , designed to provide students "a learning environment free of discrimination". The discrimination referenced in the Act includes the usual suspects – race, religion, color, national origin, and disability – as well as weight, both sex and gender, and sexual orientation. Apparently economic discrimination is not only OK, but government sanctioned.

What were they thinking?

Sue