Tuesday's Number: $1,234,892

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 35 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $1,172,185.

This week, there were four satisfied judgments to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider, totaling $36,685.

This week, there was one health care related bankruptcy totaling $26,022.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Tuesday's Number: $758,481

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 30 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $758,481.

This week, there were no satisfied judgments or bankruptcies to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

The Poetry of Sarah Palin

Sarah from Wasilla has published more poetry; most of this collection is from her Facebook page and covers what everyone but Fox News is calling a government shutdown, healthcare.gov and her husband's hunting prowess.

Cure for Belly Fat.
Republicans in Congress
are attempting to fund... essential functions
but Democrats are blocking them because
they want to make any slim down
look as awful as possible
in order to deflect
from what this
whole slim
down thing
is all about

An Apple a Day
The White House is now
comparing Obamacare's
numerous "glitches"
to Apple software
updates.

Cool. As. A. What.
Yeah.
Todd
bagged a moose.
Dinner.

Tuesday's Number: $842,316

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 35 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $710,040.

This week, there was one satisfied judgments to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider, totaling $6,516.  

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies, totaling $126,120.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

The American People Have Spoken

While I was sitting here late last week doing the math and scratching my head on the damage from all of the health care related judgments and bankruptcies in Central New York so far this year (here are the ugly numbers), our elected representatives in Washington were doing what they do best: wasting time, wasting money, and wasting their breath with outright lies and truth-stretching, all played out in front of a national media that's afraid to tell the public what's really going on.

Yes, they're messing around with shutting down the government, and in another couple of weeks potentially jeopardizing the good faith and credit of the country, by passing spending bills that would fund the government - except for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or more commonly, the ACA).  The first bill sent by the House to the Senate led to Canadian-American Ted Cruz (R-Texas) babbling on the floor of the Senate for 21 hours or so, only to be shut down procedurally by Harry Reid, who I think may be the least exciting thing ever to have come from the state of Nevada. After the 100 - 0 vote to move on (yes, Cruz voted to move on, just like everyone else did), the Senate proceeded to strip off the ACA defunding amendment and send what they call a clean bill back to the House, with a 54 -44 vote.

Saturday night, the House Republicans gathered in a booth in the corner in the dark in the back to chat, then came out and had some more votes, and passed another version of a funding bill that will be rejected by the Senate just like the last one was.

This version includes a delay in the ACA until 2015 (by a 232-192 vote), a repeal of the medical device tax that's part of the ridiculously complex ACA funding plan (248-174), and would allow businesses to choose whether to include contraceptive coverage in their no-cost-to-the-member preventative services.  This hugely controversial provision of the women's preventative services benefit package already comes with a religious exemption, but it's more complicated than just saying "I disagree on religious grounds" and so many (on both sides) see it as cumbersome.

The House will also continue funding for military-related programs, via another amendment to their bill, which is a nice tip of the hat to our soldiers who may otherwise receive an IOU from Congress -- while Congress would of course get a paycheck.  This one passed by a vote of 423 -0. I'm not sure exactly why this was not important enough to make the cut for the first bill?

Throughout all of their 40 some-odd votes to repeal the ACA and their defunding efforts, the Republicans insist that "The American People Have Spoken" (which whether written or spoken must include the emphasis of capital letters) - and don't want Obamacare.

Well, to an extent, the Republicans are correct: The American People Have Spoken on this subject several times already. The Affordable Care Act was debated and passed by both Houses of Congress, and signed by the President. It was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. And, Barack Obama was re-elected president last November. Weren't The American People Speaking then?

Not surprisingly, when the health care reform act is called Obamacare, which is how the Rs derisively refer to it, people have a more negative response to it than when it's referred to as the Affordable Care Act. Why? Because, not for nothing, The American People are remarkably gullible when it comes to sound bites and advertising.  Bacon ice cream, anyone? Pharmaceutical advertising?  How about that full page Cialis ad in the paper?  Because after all, nothing says "Good Morning!" like an erectile dysfunction conversation over a waffle and a cuppa.

The Republicans also fail to mention when they talk about The American People Having Spoken is that when surveys show that The American People don't like Obamacare, there's a pretty good percentage who don't like it because it doesn't go far enough. Yep -- depending on the survey, as many as a quarter of the people who don't like it don't like it because it's not good enough.

Finally, and more importantly, surveys of The American People Speaking also show that folks simply don't understand what the ACA does or includes.  For example, this recent poll by NBC news found that:

• 34% admit they don't understand it very well
• 35% understand it only somewhat
• 30% understand it pretty well or very well

Folks, that is what the Republicans are counting on - that they can cloud the discussion with nonsense (death panels, for god's sake, people still think the ACA includes death panels!), cram some nonsense advertising down people's throats, and then throw some cutesy sound bites out there for the media to soft-pedal. It's beyond ridiculous.

What they will not mention, however, are survey results like this: in the same NBC poll, 73% of The Americans Who Have Spoken say they're already satisfied with their health coverage.  Which is cool -- because the ACA implementation began in 2010; so, many folks who are satisfied with the coverage they have now, are satisfied with benefits that might only be available because of the ACA.  Pretty sure the R's are not going to be tossing that statistic around much.

Yes, the American People Have Spoken.

Let's move on. Fund the government, and oh, when you have something meaningful put together to amend the ACA, I'm all ears.

Sidebar: Tuesday's Number

This week's listing of judgments and bankruptcies brings to an end the third quarter's reporting. The totals are up almost $700,000 compared to the second quarter.  By category, here's where things ended up:

• Judgments filed:         $6,196,947
• Judgments satisfied:        983,813
• Bankruptcies:                  518,448
• Total dollars:              $7,699,208

 And here's the damage year to date, for the 946 listings:

• Judgments filed:        $19,195,769
• Judgments satisfied:      2,243,739
• Bankruptcies:                1,130,048 
• Total dollars:             $22,533,556 

As I've noted in the past, there is potential for some of this to be 'self-inflicted', meaning folks who could pay their bills but for some reason choose not to; there's also some duplication -- folks actually do pay off their debts, and so could be listed at one point in the 'judgments filed' column on the ledger and again at a later date in the 'judgments satisfied' column.

But it's still a pretty big, pretty ugly number, isn't it, just for our little Central New York region?

Tuesday's Number: $982,643

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 29 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $956,737.

This week, there were no satisfied judgments to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies, totaling $25,906.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Wanted: A New Hotel Syracuse (or an old gargoyle)

Three days a week, when I leave the Centro Hub and head off to the Murbro parking lot between  Salina and Clinton to meet My Sweet

Sue Drummond photo, July 2012

Baboo for the ride home, I stare at the empty Hotel Syracuse; the gargoyles on the roof glare back at me, wondering what the heck we're thinking leaving them sitting there ignored all these years. 

Across Onondaga from the original Hotel, the former Hilton Tower also sits empty, partially boarded up, the decorative brickwork in the sidewalk crumbling with neglect.

How is it that so many times over the years, bad owners have been able to keep the city of Syracuse and other developers from moving forward with renovations to the Hotel Syracuse?  And how much longer will the willing be held hostage by the unwilling?

I've lived in Syracuse long enough to remember the Hotel open for business; the Lobby bar and the piano man; the St. Patrick's Day and New Year's Eve parties; Zell's men's store and other retail establishments,restaurants and bars that populated the street level; our beloved Coach Mac and others living upstairs; seeing the local high school kids all duded up for their proms, and so on.

Years ago, I worked at the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, when the offices were on the first floor of the Hotel, on the Onondaga Street side. I remember the many meetings we sponsored in the conference rooms, breakfasts in the restaurant off the lobby, and parties on the bridge between the old Hotel and the Tower.

What I can't remember is how many times someone has bought the Hotel, and threatened to refurbish it, only to end up not paying their taxes, and letting the grand old Hotel slide a little further into disrepair each time, the few remaining businesses falling one at a time, like toy soldiers.

It was bad enough when it was local investors who were unable to complete the deal. It got much worse when, for some reason, Syracuse became the place for Israeli investors to dump their money.  (Anyone remember Eli Hadad?)

Plans along the way included apartment or condos, not only in the tower but also in the adjacent Addis building; reducing the number of rooms in the original hotel, to allow for larger rooms with more modern amenities; and of course there would be revitalized retail establishments and restaurants in that area of downtown.

A slide show in this article from The Post-Standard back in November 2010, one of many they've done over the years on the ups and downs of the Hotel, reflects both its promise and despair; on the one hand, there are pictures of the gorgeous lobby, one of the ballrooms, and folks working in the kitchen, but also damaged rooms, uncompleted renovations, and so on. That conflict of the "is now/could be" has been part of the Hotel's history from the beginning. 

Former P-S columnist Dick Case did a story a few years back with  "Mr. Hotel Syracuse", Spencer Wallace, who used to manage the Hotel.

Candle-maker Eric Will, who was president of the hotel at its 25th anniversary, wrote that the Hotel Syracuse had its beginning "early in the year 1921, when a small group of men, eager for opportunities to serve their city, undertook the building of a new hotel. There followed days of anxiety, months of privation and years of hard work."  The hotel corporation faced bankruptcy when the building was just a skeleton on the skyline of southern downtown. The corporation had to be reorganized with new money poured in to the project.

"Accomplishment was not simple," Eric Will wrote. "Obstructions were encountered, seemingly, at every turn.  Propaganda was rife. There were those who preferred that a new hotel should not succeed."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Except for the fact that, of late, efforts to overcome the kind of obstacles that the Hotel faced from the beginning have been unsuccessful.  Earlier this year, there was some talk that the City of Syracuse would look into perhaps using eminent domain to get the Hotel away from the absentee owners, who completely ignore the property until someone else expresses interest in it. 

Let's listen again to Eric Will:

"Completely paid for - and modern in its appointments and equipment - Hotel Syracuse stands ready to meet anew the challenge of a greater Syracuse that must come with tomorrow."

The Hotel Syracuse once helped us meet our civic challenge; it now presents a challenge for city and county officials. It's one of our 'gateway' properties; it's in an area -- the Warren Street canyon -- that needs attention. Now's the time for Mayor Miner and her team to help get this property back in local hands, so that willing local developers can proceed with their plans. 

If not, can someone help me get the gargoyles down? They'd look great in my garden.

Tuesday's Number: $374,257

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were six people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $185,405.

This week, there was one satisfied judgment totaling $76,234 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies, totaling $112,618.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Andrew Cuomo's Sense of Humor

Earlier this summer, our Sonova Governor Andrew Cuomo, working with legislative leaders, got approval to create the Financial Board for Restructuring for Local Governments, announcing that:

Localities across the state are facing a growing financial crisis of soaring retirement costs while their populations stagnate and property values drop.The only options for struggling municipalities cannot be bankruptcy or being subject to a financial control board. This legislation would create a Financial Restructuring Board for fiscally distressed cities to turn to in difficult times. By helping localities to make tough decisions and manage their finances now, the State as a whole will benefit in the long term because we simply cannot afford to kick the can down the road any longer.

The Board includes 10 members, including four state government bigwigs (the State's Budget Director, Comptroller, Attorney General, Secretary of State) and six others appointed by the Sonova:

Of these six appointees, one will be recommended by the Temporary President of the Senate, and one will be recommended by the Speaker of the Assembly. At least one of the Governor’s appointees will have significant municipal financial and restructuring experience.  

Cuomo's relationship with Syracuse's current mayor, Stephanie Miner, is somewhat strained. Miner, who co-chairs the state Democratic Committee, has made no secret of her disagreements with Cuomo on the state's role in helping cities, specifically Cuomo's proposal allowing cities to spread their pension payments out over several years, something Miner considered kicking the can down the road.  

She also disagrees with a key provision of the legislation that created the new Restructuring Board, the part dealing with arbitration on municipal contracts.  The way the law was worded keeps certain contract talks out of the new arbitration process -- including the current 'at impasse' negotiations with the Syracuse firefighters.Why is that important?

Before calling an impasse, Local 280 of the International Association of Fire Fighters had asked the city for 6 percent raises for two years, plus no increase in health-care contributions, according to personnel director Robert Stamey. Firefighters now pay $45 a month for individual health insurance and $75 for family coverage.

That's quite a break for the union; in the new process, the Board must consider a city's finances and ability to pay for the contract as the major components in their decision. It's hard to imagine any upstate New York city being able to sustain this type of contract, or any Board of arbitration agreeing to it.
 
Back to Cuomo -- just last week, he failed to endorse Miner in her primary against Pat Hogan and Alfonso Davis, although she won handily anyway.

So, with that backdrop, now that the time has come to get the new Board up and running, guess who Cuomo tapped for the FRB? None other than Matt Driscoll -  former bar owner and former mayor of Syracuse. Here's the logic behind his appointment, according to the press release issued a couple of days ago:

Matthew J. Driscoll is the President and CEO of the Environmental Facilities Corporation. Prior to his appointment in 2009, Mr. Driscoll was the Mayor of Syracuse where he spearheaded multiple environmental, energy and sustainability initiatives; instituted a performance-based accountability program for city government which saved millions of dollars for city taxpayers; and also helped make the City of Syracuse the first city in the country to offer free college tuition to every student who graduates with a Regents diploma. After serving from 1998-2001 as the President of the Common Council, Mayor Driscoll led comprehensive planning and development of downtown and neighborhood housing development, as well as an action plan for the modernization of the city school buildings.  

Some of the things in Driscoll's resume have been continued or expanded under Miner's administration, including Say Yes and the school modernization plans.  And what about that 'performance-based accountability program' that Driscoll instituted? That's SyraStat, which the city is no longer using. 

In a 2009 article looking at the Driscoll legacy, The Post-Standard noted that the city figured the program saved taxpayers about $50 million over eight years -- no small potatoes there. It's easy to wonder what SyraStat or similar programs would point to as opportunities for our city now, if Mayor Miner went before this board for help. 

Do you think that's what Cuomo is thinking? Or does he just have an odd sense of humor?

Tuesday's Number: $321,693

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 17 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $215,044.

This week, there were three satisfied judgments totaling $22,710 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies, totaling $83,939.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Another Parade of Homes, Outside the City

This week the 'Syracuse' 2013 Parade of Homes opens. As with some of the other recent editions, the Parade is not being held in the city of Syracuse, it's in the town of Lafayette, along the Jamesville Reservoir. Some previous Parades have been in Onondaga, Manlius, Howlett Hill, and Clay (next year will be the fourth time there).

Last year, I imagined a parade-style investment in the city and what that could mean to our future; I can't help thinking the same thing again this year, and hope that our candidates for mayor would imagine the same thing.

I appreciate what's happening in our downtown neighborhood, and won't complain about our ridiculously high occupancy rate for the lofts and funky apartments -- and I love that people are investing in saving our old buildings and supporting the city's core.  But we need similar support in the city's heart -- our neighborhoods.

Looking at some data gathered by the US Census bureau, it seems obvious that we need something bold, something shocking, something completely different, if our city is to survive.  Check out these numbers, which are the estimates for 2007 - 2011:

• Only 41.9% of our total housing units are single family homes; over 20% are two-family, and 14% are more than 20 units;
• The vacancy rate was 15.5%;
• 59.3% were renter-occupied, not owner-occupied;
• 75.5% of all houses were built before 1960; 49.5% were built before 1939.

Imagine being able to restore dozens of those older homes, bringing back their glory and making them safe again. Imagine having professional landscapers transform entire city blocks with green spaces, in collaboration with existing sustainability efforts. New sidewalks and lighting. Active neighborhood watch groups and neighborhood associations. Increased owner-occupancy rates.

Cities thrive when committed people live in them, people who have skin in the game. Schools improve; businesses move in; tax collection increases, and services can continue to be provided to all city residents. There are lots of committed people already in Syracuse, and many neighborhoods are building or maintaining their identities, including Sedgwick Farm, and Lincoln Hill, and Eastwood, and Strathmore and Tipp Hill (their website is under development).

There are lots of other neighborhoods could use that same kind of identity-building, community-building, thriving-city-building energy. We should be able to fix a lot of houses with type of private investment made on the 2013 Parade homes, coupled with block grants and other funding that might be available for this type of work.

Imagine a Parade of Homes in Syracuse.

Questions for Stephanie Miner, Pat Hogan, and Alfonso Davis

Tuesday is Primary Day, and we in the city of Syracuse have a choice to make. Three Democrats are running for mayor: Stephanie Miner, the incumbent; City Councilor Pat Hogan, and businessman Alfonso Davis.

I have some questions for them:

1. How will your administration harness the energy that has made Armory Square so successful and expand the boundaries of ‘downtown’ to include the rest of the center city, and broaden the nature of development to include more businesses, not just more residents?
2. Expanding the city’s tax base can only happen if people stay in our neighborhoods, or if we can get more people to move in and make the city their home.  What plans do you have to improve neighborhoods and encourage people to live in the city?  Do you support requiring city workers to live here? And if yes, what will you do to encourage that?
3. There are many programs out there designed to help kids of all ages be successful, yet we continue to have poor graduation rates, even as we invest in improving our educational facilities.  What do you think is the single most important thing we can invest in to keep kids in school through graduation, and how would you pay for it?
4. What are you REALLY going to do about crime in Syracuse? Take a look at my zip code – 13205 -- and give me some specifics on what your administration will focus on to reduce crime here. 
5. We hear lots of talk about public/private/educational collaboration to help solve our problems. What are your priorities in this regard, and give some specific examples of the type of activities we can expect to see on your priority issues?
6. What's the one quality you possess that makes you the best candidate to lead Syracuse for the next four years?

I'm hoping I hear from the candidates, and if I do, I'll share their responses.

Tuesday's Number: $753,658

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance. 

This week, there were 24 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $699,378.  

This week, there were two satisfied judgments totaling $28,354 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.   

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies, totaling $25,926.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Marriage Equality from the IRS is not real 'Tax Equality'

Yesterday, the Internal Revenue Service announced that they would recognize legal same-sex marriages for tax purposes, granting them the same benefits as legally married opposite-sex couples.  Even if they move to a state that doesn't have a marriage equality law. Even if they were married in a foreign country.  By golly, how progressive!

Here's a comment from Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on the decision:

Today's ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide. It provides access to benefits, responsibilities and protections under federal law that all Americans deserve. This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.

This announcement was entirely logical, based on the SCOTUS decision back in June that deemed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.

The expected parties chimed in from both the 'pro' and 'con' side. For example:

The Treasury Department is grossly overstepping its authority. This is a nation of laws. Only Congress has the authority to change the law...This action continues a pattern of lawlessness across the nation where administrators and clerks have taken it upon themselves to interpret and re-write laws as they pertain to marriage. Only the legislative branches of the Federal or State governments enact or rewrite the law... This,  from Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage. I'm guessing that those 'administrators and clerks' include Supreme Court Justices, who down DOMA?

This welcome clarification provides fair and consistent treatment for all legally married couples across the country. The federal government is right to recognized that people's marriages shouldn't dissolve when they cross state lines.  So said James Esseks, director of the ACLU's LGBT Project.

This one seemed like a no-brainer for the IRS. The alternative, of course, would be to treat opposite-sex marriages the same as same-sex marriages, which I'm sure no one wants to mess with.  For example:

• Try telling an opposite-sex couple just back from their destination wedding and honeymoon on a Caribbean island that they're not really married, because they had their wedding in another country.
• Try explaining to all of those loving opposite-sex couples that got married in Las Vegas at the Elvis Wedding Chapel that their marriage is meaningless here in New York, because it happened in another state.
• Or my favorite, try telling married opposite-sex couples that they can no longer have any of the myriad benefits that go along with being married. There's more than just the tax implications, such as the one that was the reason for the Windsor/DOMA case in the first place.

If  the government shouldn't be in the marriage business, as some have suggested, then all benefits given to legally married couples should be removed.  However, if the government is going to be in the marriage business, then all legally married couples - same or opposite sex - are entitled to the same federal benefits.  That's really simple. 

What's complicated is way beyond the issue of marriage equality, and that's the thinking that somehow, every 'interest group' is entitled to some special benefit under the varied laws of the federal government and of each state.  Individuals and businesses, doctors and lawyers, farmers and bankers,  rich people and poor, military contractors and tourist traps and everyone and everything in between, have a chance at any number of reductions, credits, and benefits simply because they are, well either a person, place or thing. It's nuts.

What if, heaven forbid, we actually treated everyone equally, in just the tax code?  What if we made everyone pay their fair share, and not some manufactured share based on who they loved, their race, their location, their occupation, or how they spent their salary?

An outrage of biblical proportions, I'm sure.  The screaming that's been happening since June 26th over same sex marriage will pale in comparison to what would happen if we truly moved towards a limited government that acted with equality.

Anyone want to stick around for that?

Why We Need Campaign Finance Reform

Earlier this week I talked about ways to get the money out of politics.  To be sure, many will think they were ridiculous or extreme, but I have to say it sure was good to get them off my chest.  The fact that they will likely never become law, well, that’s just something I’m going to have to fight to change, I guess. 

When you talk about money and term limits in politics, you don’t have to go far in my neck of the woods to find examples where you have to just scratch your head. 

For example: we limit the mayor of Syracuse to two terms; Common Councilors can serve no more than eight years in the same seat – so if you represent a specific seat for two terms, you can then go and serve an additional two terms in an ‘at-large’ seat.  If you move to a different district, you could theoretically serve another two terms there. Does that make sense?

At the Onondaga County level, term limits are anathema. For example, we’ve had only three elected County Executives since the inception of the position.  John Mulroy served as the first Exec, from January 1962 through December 1987; Nick Pirro took over in January 1988 and served through December 2007, and Joanie Mahoney has been in office since then.  

Kevin ‘St Patrick’ Walsh, the County Sheriff, is now in his fifth term, and is already the longest serving sheriff in county history (Walsh portrays the Irish saint every March for the parade). Walsh is collecting a pension as a retired law enforcement officer (some $78K per year) as well as his salary as the elected sheriff, another $110K or so.  He failed to tell voters that he was going to retire until after the election was over – because no one asked him, according to published reports. 

And of course, we have our District Attorney for Life, William J Fitzpatrick, who was sworn in way

Dick Blume/The Post-Standard

back in January 1992 and is now in his sixth four-year term.  Fitz is, to be fair, a man of many accomplishments. He’s also wonderful with a turn of the phrase (sort of).

Not only is he a Big Man on Campus here in Onondaga County, he’s now a BMOC on a bigger campus, having been named co-chair of Governor Cuomo’s Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. 

So, now that Fitz is a key player on a commission working on campaign finance reform (as well as public corruption), the irony of the article that appeared in my local newspaper recently is not lost on me. Sara Patterson, a reporter for The Post-Standard, talked about Fitzpatrick's campaign contributions and expenses, and it was an eye-opener.

I was interested less in where the money comes from, but where the money goes. Here’s how Fitz spent lots of his contributions, according to the article, which pulled information from official campaign committee filings:

• Restaurants and bars: at least $63,000
• Golf courses, golf clubs, golf tournaments: at least $57,000
• Donations to other political campaigns or political parties: at least $53,000
• Polls, political consultants: at least $10,000
• Ads: at least $64,000

What else was noted in the database The Post-Standard created, which covered financial reports from 2005 -2013?

• Over $93,000 of the expenses were paid outside of Onondaga County; of that, close to $37,000 was spent outside New York State, in places like New Mexico and Idaho and Hawaii, Virginia and Tennessee and Florida (and, oddly, in Canada).
• One restaurant  - Peter Lugar's Steakhouse in Brooklyn - received over $29,000 of Fitz's campaign funds.
• Fitz reimbursed himself over $61,000 out of campaign funds.

Let that last one sink in for a bit -- and then let this sink in. 

Fitzpatrick, so far this year, has reimbursed himself over $12,000 out of campaign funds. During that same time period, he's also paid campaign expenses of almost $26,500 in and outside Onondaga County. And note that this is not an election year for him; he's next on the ballot for DA in 2015, having just been re-elected in 2011 to a four-year term in which he ran unopposed (for the fourth time).

Listen, I have no problem with expenses for advertising, polling, signs and the materials to make them, postage, website design, and so on -- all of which are noted in Fitzpatrick's filings.  Those are what I would expect campaign contributions to be used for.

And I'm not suggesting that our DA is doing anything unethical or illegal with how he spends campaign contributions. An election law expert would be able to tell us if these expenses are legal within the confines of campaign finance laws in New York, but I suspect they are. And that's a problem.

It's also a problem if people who donate money to local political campaign committees are not aware that their donations may be used for golf, steak dinners, travel expenses to meetings out of state, television appearances, contributions to political housekeeping accounts and other candidates, or what I loosely bucketed as 'charitable contributions', which include retirement dinners for judges, benefits to help raise funds for various causes, recreation leagues, unions, fraternal organizations and the like. 

That's not a comment on the value of the organizations or causes Fitz spends donor money on; heck, I think I've probably donated to some of the same ones he did. The difference is, when I do it, it's with my own money, not money given to me by other people in support of my election campaign.

Folks, the system is broken, and it needs to be fixed. The people selected to investigate and recommend changes are currently benefiting from the laws they'll be investigating. 

Are they the right people to fix it?  Want to talk about it over a steak dinner?

 

Tuesday's Number: $986,744

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance. 

This week, there were 33 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $922,259.  

This week, there were two satisfied judgments totaling $64,505 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were no health-care related bankruptcies.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

You Want Me to Solve the Problem? Fine!

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been having a Facebook conversation with a friend of  a friend, a man who apparently thinks that most if not all Dems are commies and that the only right thinking comes, naturally, from The Right.

What started our discussion was his comment that public employee unions need to be abolished, because 'when you have elected officials accepting contributions from unions and then having to negotiate with them", there’s an obvious conflict of interest. 

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of unions, I suggested that the same obvious conflict of interest exists when you have elected officials taking money from businesses, lobbyists, trade organizations, other legislators, etc., who then go and write or vote on legislation that will directly benefit their donors, and further that this happens equally frequently and is equally bad.

Surprisingly he agreed with me, but then put the burden on me:  

Sue, you’re absolutely correct and when you can figure a way to make legislators vote to remove the money from politics we’ll all be better off.

Typical. The R’s blame the D's and their union backers for bankrupting the country,and then leave it up to us to solve the problem of money in politics too?  Sheesh – talk about shirking responsibility.

But fine, I said to myself. There IS a way to do this, if we really wanted to. And I appreciate that's one big honking 'if'. Here are a few dozen suggestions.

All levels of government:

Implement term limits. Eliminate pensions for elected officials. Allow campaign contributions only from actual living breathing people. Period. Ban contributions from outside the district.  Limit how campaign contributions can be spent. Prevent legislators from setting up Political Action Committees. On the slim chance that a politician leaves office before death, return all remaining campaign contributions to the local jurisdiction’s general fund.  

Require legislators to be present and accounted for, for all votes.  Record all votes as either Yes, No, or Chicken. Do not allow voice votes on legislation. Require legislators at all levels to abide by the laws they pass, no exceptions.  Do not allow attachment of unrelated amendments or language to any legislation.

Reduce the number of committees, sub-committees, and the leadership positions that go along with them. Remove elected officials from the redistricting process. Permanently ban former elected officials from lobbying. Honor the voters: don’t appoint the spouse of an elected official to fill out an unexpired term of their spouse. Do not appoint someone from a different party to fill out an unexpired term. 

Here in New York:

Stop paying full time salaries to part-time legislators.  Stop paying per-diems to legislators who take the job knowing that they’ll have to work in Albany even if they don’t live there. Ban fundraising while the legislature is in session (not only in Albany and in the home district, but in other cities where politicians are prone to congregate).

For the privilege of ‘franking’, political mailings must be black and white only, use a standard format, must be sent to all residents in the district only once a month while the legislature is in session, and must include the legislator’s voting record for that month. Mailings sent when the legislature is not in session must be paid for by the official, out of their own money.  

And finally:

Any mailings sent by any elected official within six weeks of an election in which the official is a candidate must include a black-box warning similar to that on cigarettes or prescription drugs stating:

WARNING: This is NOT official correspondence from an elected official. 

It is either flattering gibberish intended solely to encourage you to vote for this person again in the upcoming election, or it is derogatory nonsense intended to discourage you from voting for their opponent.

Believing what you read in this notice may cause you to make a bad decision when you vote.

Please choose carefully.

  

Teachers: More Powerful than POTUS

President Obama came to Syracuse today.

He traveled in 'Ground Force One', as the locals were calling his bus, with a huge entourage which snarled traffic for a while on the interstates and nearby roads from Buffalo this morning, through Rochester at lunch time, Seneca Falls in the late afternoon, and finally in Syracuse towards the end of rush hour.

At one of our local high schools (where the graduation rate hovers around 50%) Obama spoke of the value of education, how it helps make a difference, helps people be successful, helps them realize their dreams.  He talked about making it more affordable for people to get a college education, making it easier for people to pay for college, and how he and Michelle struggled to pay off their loans from college and law school.  He talked about making colleges more accountable for the success of their students, and about making it easier for people to assess colleges, to take some of the guesswork out of whether the college you think you want to go to is really going to do right by you.

I think the only point of his remarks where he referenced teachers was this comment regarding debt:

And I don't want debt to keep young people - some of whom are here today - from going into professions like teaching, for example, that may not pay as much money, but are of huge value to the country.

I'm likely biased since both of my parents were teachers, but I couldn't agree with the President more, that teachers are a huge value to the country. Their value comes from opening the eyes and minds of kids to the world of endless possibilities that await them.

When my parents retired from teaching they had almost 50 years of experience between them. Mom got you in elementary school - mostly first and second grade -- and many of her students went on to have my Dad in high school.  On the flip side, Mom taught the children of Dad's students - a full circle for students in my small hometown.  I'll never forget the comments at their retirement dinner - former students and their colleagues - telling everyone what a difference my parents had made, because they were teachers. Darn good teachers.

Last month, my mom heard from a former student out of the blue. The woman had looked Mom up on line, gotten hold of her email address, and reached out.  Mom, a very young 83, was amazed to hear from someone who remembered her as a teacher after all these years.  And I'm talking sixty years here -- the woman was in Mom's very first kindergarten class, in 1953!

Tomorrow, the former student and two others from that same class are coming into town to take Mom to lunch.

Now, I know that people who were in the gym at Henninger tonight will always remember being there, maybe shaking the President's hand, or being close enough to get a good picture.

But I hope that the kids who were there have at least one really good teacher at some point, one they'll want to look up and have lunch with sixty years down the road. 

That's power, folks.

Tuesday's Number: $194,713

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance. 

This week, there were 11 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $130,218.  

This week, there were four satisfied judgments totaling $64,495 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.   

And, there were no health-care related bankruptcies.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Tuesday's Number: $709,430

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 17 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $515,094.

This week, there were five satisfied judgments totaling $80,992 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were four health-care related bankruptcies, totaling $113,344.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Knock Knock? Who's There? Artemis

Artemis who?  Artemis who challenges neighbors to determine who is "truly disabled" in Portland, Oregon.

Apparently this Artemis creature is distributing flyers in Portland neighborhoods that name disabled voters who live in the area, so that their neighbors can take a hard look at them and determine who is 'truly' disabled and worthy of receiving disability benefits. I gotta tell you, this is even more extreme than the usual ideas that float around on the Internet.

Here's the flyer, with the names removed, courtesy of the Portland Office of Equity and Human Rights (OEHR):

Artemis, twin sister of Apollo, was a huntress, protector of animals, and a protector of children, but maybe not so nice to their moms.

Being a goddess of contradictions, she was the protectress of women in labor, but it was said that the arrows of Artemis brought them sudden death while giving birth. As was her brother, Apollo, Artemis was a divinity of healing, but also brought and spread diseases such as leprosy, rabies and even gout.

Wow -- there's a contradiction for you.  The present-day Artemis wants you to be able to hunt down and identify disabled benefit suckers, but her namesake kills moms in childbirth, which would seemingly leave babies on the public teat, as it were.  Although, to her credit, she was an eternal virgin, so I guess she wasn't out there popping out kids and collecting benefits herself, right? 

There's more. From the same article as above:

Artemis was very possessive. She would show her wrath on anyone who disobeyed her wishes...Artemis with her twin brother, Apollo, put to death the children of Niobe. The reason being that Niobe, a mere mortal, had boasted to Leto, the mother of the divine twins, that she had bore more children, which must make her superior to Leto. Apollo being outraged at such an insult on his mother, informed Artemis. The twin gods hunted them down and shot them with their bows and arrows; Apollo killed the male children and Artemis the girls.

I'm guessing in this case, Portland's Artemis is very possessive of her hard-earned income (and that of course assumes that it's earned, not some other kind) and, according to the flyer, is willing to "stand in the way" of those who would destroy our democracy - which as we all know is the democracy of the perfectly-abled and them alone, right?

It's not perfectly clear whether Artemis will knock arrow and go hunting in the neighborhoods a la the mythological Artemis, but one can only assume there's at least some level of ground-standing (grand-standing?) going on here.

I have to wonder: Artemis, do you take advantage of any public benefits?  I don't mean welfare or SNAP or Medicaid or anything like that -- Goddess forbid! -- but things like any property or income tax breaks that, while legal, are ways for our modern huntress to save at the expense of others.

Donate to charity and take a tax deduction? Own a house and take a mortgage interest deduction? Get any other benefits that are built into our federal, state and local tax codes? Maybe you've been in Portland for a while, and voted in favor of the property tax limitations back in the 1990's and now you're taking advantage of those?

If yes, Artemis my dear, you're just as bad as those you're branding with a giant 'D'.

Sure, we all know there's disability fraud. Just like we all know there's income tax fraud and every other kind of tax fraud and scads of ways to try and dodge codified obligations.  All of which should be investigated and identified and appropriate actions taken. But to suggest that everyone who's on disability needs to be examined by a neighborhood of their peers so that their disability can be discerned, well, how will you do that?

• Knock on their doors and time how long it takes them to answer?
• Steal their medical records and see what ails them, what kind of doctors they see?
• Follow them around and see if they use handicapped parking spots?
• Challenge them to a stag hunt?

Further, I suggest that if you vote (and one can only assume that as an upstanding resident of the City of Roses you are a registered and regular voter), you too are 'voting yourself money' every time you make a choice. Or is there a special way Goddesses can identify and vote only for candidates who express no opinion on fiscal issues such as taxes and spending? Candidates who, if elected, will refuse to vote on anything that comes before them that might in anyway have an impact on how your money is spent?

The bottom line is, every time we vote, we're "voting ourselves money" - either we're willing to continue spending what we spend today on our various governmental jurisdictions and programs and vote for people who promise to hold the line; we're willing to increase that spending, and so vote for people who are in favor of collecting and/or spending more money;  or we want to decrease our burden and so vote for people who promise to reduce taxes, spending, or both. 

Oh -- one more thing -- once you finish off identifying the truly 'disabled', do you then move on to the 'truly' unemployed, the 'truly' hungry, the 'truly' homeless, the 'truly' legal immigrants, the 'truly' everything else, until you're left with no one else to 'truly' identify? I wonder if then you will have 'truly' lived up to the slogan Keep Portland Weird, (albeit in a completely wrong way).

Here's another quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, my dear Goddess Artemis and others who drink from the same chalice:

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.  

Tuesday's Number: $417,701

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 12 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $395,325.

This week, there were two satisfied judgments totaling $22,376 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were no health-care related bankruptcies.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Wringing out My Bias

I live in a predominantly white, 'sidewalk friendly' neighborhood; we're on a first-name basis with some folks but everyone generally keeps to themselves. We do talk quite a bit with the immediate next-door neighbors and a family across the street, all of whom happen to be black.

Between us and downtown Syracuse, where I used to work before my company moved to the 'burbs, is a pretty dicey section of town, still in my zip code but miles away in terms of sensibility.  There's a lot of crime 'there' compared to 'here', a lot of houses in disrepair and empty lots where houses used to stand.  Truth be told, it looks like what people from the suburbs think a city looks like. Unlike my own, those neighborhoods are mostly black, with some Hispanics and very few whites.

A block or so before you get to the dicey parts, there's a house that's well taken care of; the front yard is fenced with a nice vine-covered, gated arbor at the end of the sidewalk leading up to the front door, and the yard is full of flowering shrubs and plants.  The owners obviously take pride in how their home looks. 

One day a few years ago we were passing by, and I noticed a couple standing in the doorway, looking out at the yard.  The gentleman, very tall, had his arm around the shoulder of the woman,  much shorter.  They clearly were enjoying the morning -- and I was clearly shocked.

Because they were black.  And because I assumed that the people who lived there were white.

Why? Because in my experience, the vast majority of the well-tended houses - in all of the different neighborhoods I had lived in -  were occupied by whites.  The people I saw mowing the lawn, tending the flowers, picking up trash, raking leaves in the fall, shoveling and snow-blowing in the winter, were white. And conversely.

President Obama noted recently (after George Zimmerman was cleared of all charges in the death of Trayvon Martin) that we should ask if we're wringing as much bias out of ourselves as we can. When I read that, I remembered that morning a few years ago, and I remembered feeling extremely biased. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, because I never thought of myself  that way. 

And so in the context of Zimmerman/Martin/Obama, I asked myself "Am I racist?"  I really don't care what color or ethnicity a person is, but

• I care if they're obnoxious or disrespectful or rude.
• I care if they're blasting horrible music or cursing on the sidewalk, or mistreating people or animals, or throwing walnuts at our house.
• I care if they're tossing garbage in the yard or not cleaning up after their dogs.
• I care if they leave shopping carts in the middle of parking lots, or food in the magazine racks at grocery stores.
• I care if they throw trash out the window on the highway or leave tampons on the beach.
• I care if they're mean to my mom or anyone else I care about.

I don't know if the people who do the things that drive me nuts are black or brown or yellow or pink or red or peach or white, because usually I don't see them doing the things that make me crazy. I can hazard a guess, in some cases, based on my experiences, where those experiences occurred, and behaviors I have seen with my own two eyes.

And while I would love to always look past the person, look only at their actions, and judge only those actions, I'm not perfect, and sometimes my reactions to situations are based more on my experience than on the blank slate that the President (and others) have asked me to use.  I'm trying to wring out my bias, just as everyone else should, but I admit I'm not completely there yet.

Oh -- back to the couple with the nice front yard up the street. Remember I said we were pretty friendly with the folks who bought the house next door?  Well, guess who?