The truth of the matter is that fair redistricting is an oxymoron, just as is a fair tax code, but that doesn’t stop people from getting on their high horses, issuing press releases and crying foul.

What is sheer lunacy is the idea that it will be any different if the process is turned over to an “independent” commission. First, independent is a one-word oxymoron. There is no such animal as an impartial, independent human being other than those who occupy boot hill. Second, the outcome will always be “unfair,” because fairness is a subjective value. It has never existed, it does not exist today and it never will exist.

Can the system be made fairer — i.e., slightly better? Maybe, maybe not…and probably only for a short period of time before “unfairness” wins out. But that is the essence of democracy–the worst system of government ever invented …except for all the rest.

Let’s stop playing the redistricting is unfair game and focus on what is fair and good — namely that we live in a society where each person has the right to free speech, where each person has the right to run for office and where each person gets one vote.

So, if you don’t like the proposed boundaries, the thing to do is work harder to win the election without regard to whether the voters are too white or too rich or too Republican. Treat the voters in your district as if each one of them is open to being persuaded that you are the right person to represent them in whatever body you are running for. Honor democracy and quit whinning. I for one don’t want to hear it.

Triborough Amendment Repeal Favored

Empire Page visitors voted overwhelmingly in favor of repealing this provision 64% in favor versus 24% opposed. Interestingly 7 percent of the responders have never heard of the Triborough Amendment to the law that governs collective bargaining in the public sector. This amendment prohibits a public entity from altering any provision of an expired labor agreement until a new agreement is reached. Opponents of the Triborough Amendment argue that it undermines the collective bargaining process by reducing the incentive of unions from reaching a new agreement.

Readers will find more information than opinion on this blog, but as in the case of many public policy issues these days, more information on this topic is sorely needed.

Posts in recent days have reported on Governor Cuomo’s state of the state, on reform efforts in Indiana and Ohio, on the benefits of going “paperless,” and on public-private partnerships. The latter topic is particularly significant given Gov. Cuomo’s plan to utilize such partnerships to finance major projects in New York.

“Kodak’s other structural problem is geography,” Karlgaard writes. “When you study the history of great American companies that stumbled and failed, or only partially recovered, you see how difficult it is to overcome the mindset of your immediate surroundings. Businesses located in places where success is the norm, and innovation is built into the ecology, have a better chance of fixing themselves.”

What do you think? Is Karlgaard onto something or is he blaming the victim?

Fairness as a determinant of a person’s pay level is also behind the drive to raise New York State’s minimum wage and behind living wage legislation on the agenda in New York City and elsewhere.

The fairness doctrine is predicated on the notion that one’s pay should be more a matter of want than one’s contribution to the enterprise in which one is employed.

Hence, performance as a basis for rewards of pay and status should be downgraded because that criteria undermines the opportunity for those who do not perform well to get their fair share.

Further the ability of the enterprise to pay — whether public or private — should not be considered when it comes to compensation of the work force. Such considerations undermine the ability of those who are unproducitve to gain their fair share.

Let’s be clear that fairness is a subjective value. In the past fairness was balanced against the need of the enterprise to be successful and survive (either make a profit or do the job with available resources). Today, there’s an underlying assumption that no company or government entity is paying its workers a fair wage. Rather, they are hoarding their resources and giving them to the 1%.

A company that pays its workers above the value of the contribution they add to the product or service will not long remain in business. The history of the American car industry is about that very issue. By giving in to union wage and benefit demands, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to charge so much for their cars that they opened the door to foreign manufacturers which were able to sell a superior product at a lower price even when the cost of shipping foreign made cars to the US was taken into account.

The history of the public sector over the past 40 years parallels that of the automobile industry. Elected officials gave in to union demands without consideration of the ability of taxpayers to foot the bill, often by ignoring the future pension obligations they were agreeing to. That lack of political courage has harmed both public sector employees and the general public, as it contributed to the belief that public sector employees are overpaid and underworked relative to private sector workers.

Let’s not waste our time debating whether fairness as a basis of compensation is socialistic or communistic. Labels are not important. What’s important is to recognize the long-term implications of undermining ambition and achievement.

Taken to its logical conclusion doing well in school and working hard in order to obtain a job that gives one decision-making authority and pays well should be discouraged. Why? Those values place the successful individual above the norm and undermine the ability of those who are below average to get their fair share.

Like pay, school grades should not be given out on the basis of performance but rather on the basis of want. Minority and handicapped students have a greater want of good grades since many come from low-income households and enter school with “unfair” disadvantages. Since they will not need to learn skills or work-world values in order to get a fair wage why require that they master subjects or compete with other students!

Grades, jobs and compensation should not be based on merit or performance but rather want — the measure of fairness.

Since the majority in any country skew to the average, the tendency of democractic societies is to elect officials who are in favor of policies that focus on results rather than contribution, on rewards rather than worth, on outcomes rather than effort.

The question we must ask ourselves is will that kind of society be able to compete against those that reward success based on enterprise, competition and equal opportunity and that provide a model for young people justifying effort and ambition? We only need to read the daily accounts of the problems facing Europe to gain a hint of the answer.

If that’s where this country is headed, is such an outcome the kind of fairness we owe future generations?

Sykes wrote on behalf of the Empire Center for NYS Policy:

In addition to seeking a higher minimum wage, Speaker Sheldon Silver announced this week that the Assembly will seek to reduce state taxes on the working poor. Specifically, Silver said:

Under our plan, working families who earn less than $30,000 annually will see their income taxes cut. Working families who earn less that $25,000 will pay no taxes at all.

But this is a solution to a non-existent problem. The working families described by Silver already pay no income tax, thanks to New York’s exceptionally (and appropriately) generous Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). As documented in a recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a family of three pays no income tax until its income exceeds $34,600, and a two-parent family of four pays none until income exceeds $40,300.

At a poverty level income of $17,374, a single parent of two children gets a refund of $1,917 due to the EITC. At a minimum wage annual income of $15,080, a two-parent family of four gets a refund of $2,109 – in effect raising its annual income to $17,189.

For the most part the Republicans should be happy with the Governor’s agenda. He says he will balance the budget without increasing taxes or imposing new fees; he wants to reduce the state’s pension obligations by creating a Tier 6 for future state employees; he wants to do something about the unfunded mandates that are crushing localities; he wants to put money into the state’s transportation infrastructure, which is particularly important to the business community; and he wants to make New York more competitive to boost job growth.

In fact, Cuomo may have more trouble with the Assembly than the Senate over such questions as imposing teacher evaluations on public schools, amending the Constitution to allow casino gambling and Tier 6. Knowing that his agenda is to the Assembly’s right, he threw the Assembly several bones in his State of the State, including foreclosure relief, protection for renters and doubling the goal of state contracts awarded to women and minority contractors.

Some commentators see Cuomo positioning himself for a future bid for the Presidency. He certainly infused his speech with campaign-style rhetoric, claiming he and the Legislature restored New York’s reputation as “the progressive capital of the nation.” 2011 did represent a change in direction for New York, but it was one that was forced on the state, not one the Legislature in particular wanted to embrace.

As the nation’s economy continues to teeter on the edge of another recession, depending in large part on what happens in Europe, New York again has little choice in continuing on the path of reducing the cost of government without undercutting essential governmental programs or raising taxes. To that end the governor is placing a huge bet on the idea of public-private partnerships–the idea that public investment can leverage private capital. The billion dollar leveraging projects he announced Wednesday include building the country’s largest convention center on the site of the Aqueduct Race Track, the rehabilitation of the Javits Center into a Battery-Park style complex, transportation infrastructure upgrades, an energy highway and $1 billion to help Buffalo reduce its 28% poverty rate.

Whether these public-private partnerships succeed in leveraging the kind of private investment Cuomo envisions only time will tell, but the concept is worth trying. It’s certainly an approach that makes much more sense than the Obama administration’s approach to economic development of investing public funds in companies (like Solyndra) that it wants to succeed in the market place.

Take today’s story by Chris Bragg — Martin Golden’s Member Items Help Group That Helps Him. Bragg exposes how member items are used by elected officials like Martin Golden (D-Brooklyn) to help themselves in the name of helping their communities. Read the article to learn exactly how Golden runs this scam.

Whether technically legal or not, it is the self-serving use of taxpayer funds like this that is behind the anger voters feel towards elected officials. Whether they express their anger by joining the tea party movement or sleeping in a tent in some public park, they are right to be angry.

Thank you Manhattan Media. We look forward to more stories like this in the future.

The key selling point for shutting down the program is that in its 11-year history it has not led to a single arrest or conviction, which was the original justification for the law. That does not mean, however, that there are not plenty of handgun crimes committed in NYS. Earlier this month a NYC police officer was shot and killed by a fugitive with an illegal gun. Apparently the vast majority of the guns used in crimes in New York are both illegal and brought to New York from other states.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau argues that Congress is not doing enough to end the flood of illegal guns into New York.

Morganthau states that by failing to appoint a permanent director of the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Congress has undermined that agency’s commitment to stopping the illegal gun traffic. His evidence is a roughly 30 percent decline in federal prosecutions over the period that ATF has lacked a permanent director.

Morganthau states that the “gun lobby” is responsible for the holdup, due to pressure on Congress.

So, here’s a question: If the NRA and other organizations that seek to protect the rights of Americans under the 2nd Amendment to own firearms want government to stop harassing legal gun owners, don’t they have an obligation to support government’s efforts to prosecute those involved in the trafficking of illegal guns? On what grounds can they justify lobbying against the appointment of a permanent director of the ATF without being hypocritical?

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And, the Journal finally made the obvious point on the payroll tax imbroglio, that the problem largely derives from the lack of courage on the part of the GOP members of Congress. Instead of being trapped by President Obama into opposing a “tax cut,” the GOP has been afraid to remind the American public that the 2 percent reduction in their payroll taxes was passed as a temporary one-year measure and that the country has to borrow money from the Chinese and others to pay for it.

The question they should be putting to the public is do you want the temporary cut continued if it means your grandchildren will have to pay for it plus interest down the road?