NYS Budget Mess:  Civil War Led by a Progressive Woke Cultural Revolution Is Destroying NY’s Economy; Ignored by the Media

NYS Budget Mess:  Civil War Led by a Progressive Woke Cultural Revolution Is Destroying NY’s Economy; Ignored by the Media

By Gary Tilzer

 The Citizens Budget Commission warns that Governor Hochul’s budget spending plan means a $15 billion-a-year structural deficit by 2027, while the Assembly and State Senate proposals translate to a $20 billion-a-year hole.  The Mayor has already cut most of the City’s agencies by 4 to 7%, to lessen the impact of the forecasted 12% NYC budget deficit and the rising costs of taking care of the migrants.  A recession or further reduction in the City’s tax base by businesses and people moving out will easily double or triple the deficit.  High crime is driving the slowest economic recovery from the pandemic in the nation, causing NY government deficits to soar.  As the Governor tried to put together a budget to rescue the City and State, the media ignores that Hochul faces an ideologically Woke, Cultural Civil War with progressives, emboldened by the State Senate’s historic rejection and favorable replacement nominee to lead New York’s highest court.  While the media charges MAGA Republicans are responsible for every problem facing America, they refuse to blame progressives as the reason why Albany is blocking real fixes (beyond word games) to the bail law and increasing the Charter Schools cap–changes supported by most New Yorkers, according to the public opinion polls.  We know that an uninformed public caused by the media’s failure to do its job is very dangerous to our democracy, as the election of Congressman George Santos proved.

 What is happening in Albany and City Hall is not a budget negotiation where the goal is to come up with a spending plan to improve our City and State.  It is a “Woke” cultural Civil War battle between the “new kids on the block” progressives and as they call the other members “the leftovers,” fearing the defeat by progressives, who waste their time on how to spend the recent pay increases, than fighting for middle class values as they were elected to do.  Progressives, an extremely well-organized minority of the city politics, are governing by pushing ideological values.  They use their exceptional grassroots political skills and the dysfunctional NY election law that suppresses moderate voters, to win political control of NY.  The progressives’ Civil War for control of NY is causing NYC’s shrinking tax base, growing budget deficits, the lowering of the quality of life of every New Yorker and the mass exodus from the City.  While the media ignores the Civil War and its effects on the government and New Yorkers, the progressives offer new spending programs, while protesting the Mayor for cuts to city agencies to balance NYC’s budget, which is required by state law.  Welcome to the alternative reality government and budget era.

What is important to progressives is anti-police values, education funding–not reading and math scores, new social spending programs that far exceed tax revenue collected, and most importantly gaining power.  They don’t care about the undemocratic way the state does its business, they use it to take over the government.  The state budget is called the “Big Ugly” because it lumps every policy decision, including hidden pay to play deals negotiated in secret, and has become the battle field for political control of NY.  A new Albany compromised budget agreement, applauded by all sides, including the media, will not stop the Civil War for control or solve the serious problems facing the State and City.  When will the newspapers’ editorial boards write that the “Big Ugly” is not only weaking NY’s democracy; it is the reason the City and State budgets don’t solve serious problems, causing the quality of life of its residents to fall, and hundreds of thousands to flee?

The casualties of NY’s Civil War are:  victims of crime, the City and State economies, fair elections and a record number of residents and businesses leaving the City.  If there is not a change in how NY is being run, government deficits and cuts in services will grow to dangerous levels, jeopardizing the future of the most important City in America.  People died during the 1970s fiscal crisis as a result of cuts in City services, such as the public hospitals and the fire department.  The Civil War over power is the reason for intolerable lawlessness, bad schools, abusive mismanagement, and New Yorkers leaving the state.  NYC is in a fight for its life, and the only ones who seem not to know it are the members of the City Council, Assembly, the State Senate, and the liberal media.

 

A Small Progressive Army in Control While A Potentially Larger Opposing Army Hiding, Leaderless, Disserting; NYC Needs General Washington Type Leaders

 

The progressives forcing the Woke Cultural Civil War in NY have done remarkably well in campaigns, starting with the election of Mayor de Blasio in 2013, and the defeat of the Independent Democratic Conference in 2018 to gain liberal Democratic Party control of the State Senate. Their power base are the City’s growing gentrified neighborhoods.

 

Journalism in NYC, from the days of John Peter Zenger in 1734, meant to inform the newspaper readers what their government was doing to them.  Today’s reporters write news stories from press releases, written by government and political insiders.  The dysfunctional NY Republican Party does not put press releases blaming those responsible for NY’s decline, which Lee Zeldin’s campaign did, and was so successful that it brought him to the brink of victory.  The media dumbing down voters has left them angry, frustrated, and powerless because they do not understand why the government does work for them.  The election of Congressman George Santos and the recent success of progressive candidates in low turnout elections, rely on a media that does not cover local campaigns or investigate who candidates are and what they stand for.  The first AOC campaign was not covered until the day she won the primary.

 

The media covering up the Woke cultural Civil War and not warning the public about the dangerous effects of the reduction in the City’s tax base and revenue collected, is eerily similar to the lack of economic reporting before the 1970s’ fiscal crisis.  The newspapers are again pushing the City into bankruptcy, like they did during the overspending Wagner and Lindsay mayoralties.  Progressives, who many believe already control Albany and City Hall, push alternative reality budgets with increased spending, causing government budget deficits to skyrocket.  Most progressive elected officials were not alive in the 1970s when the City went to the edge of bankruptcy.  Today’s elected office holders have no knowledge of the lay-offs of thousands of workers, cuts in municipal services, such as sanitation (more rats), education, and social services.  Those negotiating NY’s budget do not know that in 1975 Governor Carey created The Financial Control Board to oversee all municipal spending, because those helping to bail out the city did not trust the elected officials to act responsibly.  The Financial Board’s budget cuts lowered the quality of life of every New Yorker, especially the poor, who depended on government services to survive.  Unlike the 1970s fiscal crisis, today’s City budget is being drained by federal migrant policies.  If there is no federal help, the migrant costs for the City could easily double in the coming weeks from the current 5 billion, when Title 42 restrictions at the border are removed, which is already causing panic at City Hall.  Update:  Mayor Adams just said Biden’s migrant crisis has ‘destroyed’ NYC:  “every service in this City is going to be impacted by the asylum seeker crisis.”

 

The City’s Economy Crashing is Like A Plane Hitting a Mountain That is Never Investigated to Protect the Person(s) or Reason Responsible

 

Anytime a plane crashes, the National Transportation Safety Board sends in a team to investigate why the plane went down and issues a report blaming those who are at fault, to prevent future crashes.  Yet, nobody in the NY government or media is investigating or speaking out why the City’s economy is failing, finding responsibility, or proposing a plan to turn the City’s economy around.  As the City dies, reporters are actually protecting elected officials–the murderers.

 

NY1’s Errol Louis did not ask progressive Comptroller Brad Lander about the City’s deficit and what the cuts to balance NYC’s budget is doing to city agencies ability to perform their mission, during a recent interview.  Louis questioned the Comptroller about his press release discussing increasing overtime at City agencies, which the City Council used to attack the NYPD for overtime spending.  The Comptroller failed to mention in the interview that the NYPD had record retirement numbers last year, recruitment problems and that the overtime for increased subway patrolling was picked up by the State.  The Comptroller said that 99% of the City’s jobs have come back, but he did not address how the jobs that returned affect the City’s tax base.  Before the pandemic, the City’s top 10% of its Taxpayers paid over 75% of the City’s taxes.  The first question the Inside City Hall anchor should have asked Lander is does he think high taxes and lawlessness are causing NYC businesses to close or move to Florida, and how does the move out decrease NYC’s taxpayer revenue.  It is the job of the Comptroller and the media to educate New Yorkers about the City’s economy, so voters know who to vote for, to maintain or improve their quality of life.  The interviewer did not even ask Lander what happens to the City’s budget if the federal government does not provide money for migrant services.  Louis running defense for Lander was not limited to not asking budget deficit questions.  In light of the spike in shootings around the schools and not inside the school buildings, the NY1 reporter should have asked the Comptroller if he still believes metal detectors should be removed from the city’s schools.

 

The City’s Newspaper Editorial Boards Do Not Understand or are Covering Up that NY Politics and Government is Now Controlled by A Woke Culture

 

The NYP and NYDN Editorial Boards are setting themselves up for failure and hurting NYC by limiting its coverage to a pressure campaign for bail reform and lifting the cap on Charter Schools, while ignoring the Civil War for control of NY led by progressives.  The newspaper editorial boards have to understand that elected officials have a 96% chance of getting re-elected because of NY’s dysfunctional election laws that protect incumbents, and do not care what the voters think or the newspapers–not read in their districts, write.

 

The recent poll results on the bail law, covered by both the NYDN and NYP, show that few people in Speaker Carl Heastie’s Williamsbridge, Eastchester and Wakefield 83^rd Assembly District or anywhere else in the City read either newspaper.  The NY Post wrote that a startling 30% of the voters in Assemblyman Heastie’s district had never even heard of him, even though Heastie  represented the community for more than two decades in Albany.  Only 17% of Heastie’s district was aware that he is blocking Hochul’s proposed changes that would put violent suspects with long rap sheets behind bars ahead of their trial date.  The poll reported that crime is the top issue in Heastie’s district, and 64% approve of requiring anyone committing a crime with a gun to be held without bail.  Incredibly, even a drive-by shooting in front of Heastie’s office does not change his stance of not giving NYS Judges the discretion to jail those they believe to be dangerous.

 

A sampling of likely voters citywide show 60% of the NYC’s residents want more Charter Schools; 75% Black and Latino living in Heastie’s district back Hochul’s plan to lift the cap on new Charter Schools.  If Speaker Heastie is working against the people he is supposed to represent, who is he actually working for?  Does he work for the UFT who oppose lifting the Charter School cap and who donated a combined $146,000 to Heastie and another $1.3 million to the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee?  The groups spending money on ads citywide to lift the Charter School cap, would be more effective if they put up a candidate to run on a platform of lifting the cap, against the Speaker.  The UFT’s strategy of funding progressive candidates to run against elected officials who support Charter Schools is working to keep the cap.

 

It is useless for the Daily News Editorial Board to write editorials that support lifting the cap, without explaining the reasons for the Charter School disconnect between the governed and the governing.  If the NYDN bothered to read the NY Post March 14^th investigation of political hack Jonathan Yedin, they would have seen how political consultants and lobbyists paid by the UFT work inside of NY’s government and politics to block support for Charter Schools.  Yedin is a UFT political advisor, while at the same time he earns $150K from working on the staff of NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.  If the NYDN bothered to investigate the UFT’s campaign war room, they would have found progressive political consultants/lobbyists like Yedin, Red Horse, Berlin Rosen and the Advance Group, who elected dozens of progressive candidates.  The paper then would be able to show its readers why there is a cap on creating more Charter Schools.  Does the NYDN Editorial Board know that Berlin Rosen and UFT’s funding helped to create the WFP, which elected progressive citywide leaders like Brad Lander, Jumaane Williams and Mayor de Blasio first to the City Council, starting the progressive cultural revolution, that is making NY’s government Woke and broke.  The greatest City is held hostage by a minority progressive Woke cultural political machine, opposing the public’s will, because the newspaper editorial boards are not informing the public of the dangers caused by the invading political army.

 

The March 28^th NY Daily News Editorial Board (NYDN) wrote:  “The New York Legislature must heed what the public wants on addressing crime.”  The NYDN editorial threatened the State “officeholders that they will be replaced if they don’t do what the public wants.”  If the NYDN Editorial Board bothered to read its own paper, they would know that progressive lawmakers are not afraid of losing their reelection by blocking real changes to the bail law or anything the newspaper does or says.  On August 24th, 2022, the NYDN wrote:  “Progressives rout Mayor Adams-endorsed centrist Dems in NYC state Senate races.”  The NYDN Editorial writer also failed to consider that moderate officeholders and the Assembly Speaker leader Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Stewart Cousins fear primary or leadership challenges from the progressives.  On June 26, 2022, the NYDN wrote:  “Ahead of N.Y. primary, socialists and progressives set sights on incumbent Democrats in State Assembly.”  The NY Post Editorial Board on March 27^th called for a “Coalition of the Sane.”  The NYP did not address how to overcome the political reality of moderate elective officials’ fear of retaliating primaries emanating from the strong progressive machines that are interconnected with WFP, DSA, AOC, and Comptroller Brad Lander.  The progressive machines are well funded and control powerful political consultants, PACs connected to unions, and nonprofits like Communities for Change.  Does the NY Post think the CIA will divert funds from Ukraine to build and fund a political machine for the “Coalition of the Sane?”  Does the NY Post Editorial Board really believe that progressives would fear a “Coalition of the Sane?”  Or do they fear open primaries where everyone can vote, recall elections, newspapers covering every campaign and the effects of the progressive Woke cultural Civil War?

 

The NY Times current leadership seems to be paralyzed between its political narrative, which supports the progressive Woke culture initiatives like bail reform, and its traditional support for NY’s real estate developers whose investments are being hurt by the City’s crime wave and failing economy.  Victoria Schneps, who owns most of the free newspapers in NYC, has to do more than print press releases from the Mayor and other favored politicians, if she wants to keep the stores and businesses open to advertise in her papers.  Schneps Media must cover the political Woke Culture Civil War over who controls NY and warn its readers of the consequences to the future of NYC and the Mayor’s budget and middle class values, if the progressives’ army takeover is not stopped.

 

Paul Starr, the distinguished Princeton media scholar, understands why Speaker Heastie and the progressive elected officials are blocking changes to the bail law and don’t seem to care what the NYP and NYDN write.  Starr states:  “the failure of the newspaper business caused by the Internet in the last two decades has fragmented the public’s understanding of politics and government.”  Starr believes that “strong newspapers of the past, providing the public a powerful means of clarifying issues that are important to them, and leverage over politicians to get things done, is now gone.  In its heyday the NYDN was read by more than four million New Yorkers; the NYP more than two million.  Both the NYP and NYDN now print less than 100,000 copies each.  The two tabloids newspaper online news sites are mostly read in NYC by political insiders, not the average New York voter.

 

Incumbent Protection Redistricting Will Help Re-elect the Woke City Council Majority Who are Clueless on How to Rebuild the City’s Economy

 

All of the newspaper editorial boards have missed the fact that the redistricting of the City Council favored the reelection of incumbents, who by defunding the police by a billion dollars, working hard to close Rikers and going after police overtime already hurt the City’s ability to fight crime and recruit new police officers.  Almost two hundred years ago, the leaders of NYC had the foresight to build the Erie Canal, which made the City–the business and financial capital of America.  Today’s City Council fails to comprehend that lawlessness is ending NYC 200 year dominance in business and finance.  Last October the Jewish Voice wrote:  “The elected City Council Incumbents have been paid off by the Council Redistricting Commission, making the Council members stronger in their district by cutting out areas where their support was weak.”

 

Last week former City Councilman Sal Albanese wrote on Twitter: “Scores of @NYCCouncil races & other offices where there is no opponent or very weak candidate. This is good 4 incumbents but terrible for the 4 residents because competition is healthy keeping lawmakers on their toes & minimizing corruption.  That means no debate or accountability on rising crime.  I am going to be very blunt, most of @NYCCouncil is replete with unemployable ideologues & professional pols who also could never earn 150G in the private sector.  NYC will adopt an over 100B budget & @NYCCouncil full of generally professional politicians with zero experience dealing with budgets, no finance background, are playing a role, so don’t expect any innovative or fiscally sound approaches.”

In the 1990s, Council Speaker Peter Vallone teamed up with Mayor David Dinkins and the business community to pressure Albany to fund 5,000 more police officers, which reduced crime to record lows, allowing NYC’s economy to grow and prosper.  Today, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams attacked the Mayor and NYPD over overtime funding (paid by the State) to put more police officers on the Subway, which over 40% of its former riders refuse to use.  Don’t look for the City Council to hold hearings on the low morale inside NYPD, causing a record number of retirements and recruitment problems for the Department, forcing the City to hire a Hollywood advertising agency to find new police officers.

Does Anyone Notice NYC’s Has a Small Tax Base and It Is Leaving Town?

It is economic insanity that the media is silent as progressive City Council members who are threatening to tax the rich who have not moved out yet, to pay for their new spending programs and to balance the budget.  The media covers the progressive Council members’ call for new taxes on the very rich but does not explain to its readers and viewers that the top 1% of the taxpayers (41,000)–many of whom already moved out–pay 48% of the State & City’s taxes.  The top 10% of the city’s taxpayers (450,000) contribute almost exactly two-thirds of the city’s income tax revenue.  The remaining 3.3 million taxpayers pay the final third.  Many of the economic experts believe that a majority of the half a million who have already moved out of the City and State come from the 450,000 top 10% of the taxpayers who pay most of the taxes.  City Council members who are incapable of understanding that high crime and taxes are causing NYC’s fragile small tax base to leave the state, will all be reelected.  Even the tax revenue from Wall Street, which contributes almost 18%, is in jeopardy, as financial sector jobs leave the City, and the market movers relocate.  Jaimie Dimon, the head of JP Morgan Chase, has transferred more jobs to Texas than it currently has in Manhattan.  The progressives, besides ignoring the economic reality of the City’s tax base falling like a house of cards, are hypocrites when they say their goal is to help the poor as they destroy the fragile NYC tax base.  When the City goes broke, the poor will be hurt the most when the City is forced to cut the social services they need to survive.  With the expected non-renewal of the 421A housing program, progressives are speeding up gentrification where their supporters during the last two decades moved into new housing in poor and minority neighborhoods.  If no new housing is built, continued gentrification will push out the remaining poor and minority tenants living in existing older buildings.

It is not just Albany lawmakers and the City Council refusing to take responsibility for budget deficits and the taxpayers abandoning the City.  The media operates in the same alternative reality economic universe as the progressives, by covering press releases for  new services and programs that make no economic sense, at a time the NY’s budget is facing growing deficits and bankruptcy.

Last week, NY1 covered a press release from a progressive transit group proposing free bus services.  The young reporter did not inform viewers about the Mayor’s and Governor’s budget battle on who will be responsible for only a small portion ($500 million) of the transit $45 billion dollar deficit that the state must deal with.  The NY1 reporter also did not mention that the MTA (joined by Congressman Nadler and Goldman) are pushing Congestive Pricing to reduce its MTA budget deficit.  Congestive Pricing, which is planned to require every car entering Manhattan to pay $23, will no doubt result in more New Yorker taxpayers leaving the city, further reducing its tax base.

The progressive lawmakers in Albany care more about giving MTA workers the right to strike, than finding waste in an agency that thinks cost overruns are normal and there is nothing wrong with spending $30 million dollars to build a staircase in Times Square.  The MTA will either get a total disaster of a package from Albany, hashed out in secret for this year’s budget, which will resemble the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dyke to temporarily hold off disaster, or it will get nothing, and implement service cuts and double-digit fare hikes, which will result in even more riders jumping the turnstile or join those who no longer use the subways.  It seems Albany’s only plan for the MTA is total chaos.

Weak Journalism Allowed a Small Occupying Army That Functions Like A Cult, to Destroy NYC’s Golden Goose Economy

It is clear that progressives do not see their job as being responsible to turn around NY’s failing economy.  Their objective is to use the government to gain power at any cost, to accomplish their ideological culture-changing mission, creating a socialist state.  It is insane to think anyone could change NYC–the world’s capitalist headquarters, into a socialist base of operations.  Their attempt is killing a great city and hurting, if not ending a lot of lives.  New Yorkers who are killed or beaten by career criminals, the skyrocketing teen violence, bad schools, and the growing budget gaps, forcing government cuts, are costs that progressives clearly accept to accomplish their power grab.

NY’s liberal media never covers how progressives are greatly helped by NY’s dysfunctional election law, which suppresses over two million registered moderate and independent voters.  These voters, registered in other parties, are not allowed to vote in the Democratic Primary, where the winner of that election wins 95% of the time in the general election.  A clever, politically power-hungry minority is controlling our government.  It is changing NY’s Tammany Hall 100-year-old local control, where elected officials listened to the concerns of their constituents, to progressive representatives, governing according to their personal ideological beliefs.

The $500 million that former Mayor Bloomberg is spending on TV commercials, to help the Governor pass bail reform and lift the charter school cap in a compromised budget, is about as useful as the billion he spent on his short failed presidential campaign.  The only hope for those who are fighting the progressives is to build, organize and fund a political machine to run primaries against the progressives.  Bloomberg should know that PACs that pump out campaign flyers to defeat progressives during campaigns do not work.  Instead, the media must educate the voters on how their lives are being affected by the Woke Civil War being waged in their backyard, or we will lose the City.

 

Real journalism and changes to the NY State election law will build local neighborhood leaders before the elections, pulling out NY’s silent majority, to defeat progressives’ machines and PACs.  To save their investments in NYC, Bloomberg has to convince his fellow billionaires, who make up the NY Partnership, to replace Kathy Wylde with new leaders who understand how the progressives operate.  The City’s establishment must provide the resources to revive NYC’s historically powerful aggressive journalists and strong neighborhood leaders who understand how the City’s economy prospers and are not afraid to fight the invading army of progressives.  Journalist Jimmy Breslin would have shut down the progressives’ occupation of the City quicker than he helped capture another NYC troublemaker–Son of Sam.

Newspaper Editorial Boards and the Partnership should be pushing Open Primaries and Recall elections to empower NY’s voters and neighborhoods to take on the progressives who now have too much power over the voters.  Even Chicago has open primaries, where every registered voter can vote, with the required run off, if no candidate receives 50% of the vote.  NYC needs to rebuild or keep the middle class in the city to use its values to defeat the Woke culture values being pushed on the city and state governments.  The progressives pushing Woke culture will tell you–theirs are the only moral values. Progressives who only use history when it puts down America, ignore the values of generations of New Yorkers who built this City and its powerful and resilient economic engine, that allowed generations of immigrants, arriving with pennies in their pockets from all over the world, to climb up the economic ladder and achieve the American Dream for their working families.

@GaryTilzerTips