Let Them Sue
By Jeffrey Page
Technically, this column is a mixed metaphor. Bear with me.
Somebody in Albany had the good sense to take a look at the state’s cash on hand and discovered it was $3 million – or about 15 cents per person. This is cutting things pretty thin. You know what 15 cents buys nowadays.
Governor Paterson understood the impossibility of this situation. No state can operate with such a threadbare treasury, especially if it wishes to sell bonds and even more especially if that state happens to be New York, the state of Wall Street, the financial capital of the world.
As a result, Paterson decided to withhold about $750 million in aid to the state’s municipalities and school districts. He said he wasn’t cancelling this assistance, but deferring it for now. He said he expects to be sued over his action, but so far he’s standing his ground. We shall see for how long.
So, as the state of New York teeters on the brink, let the howling from various interests begin. By the way, have you heard anything constructive from members of the State Senate or Assembly about the state’s wretched financial condition?
If the usual recipients of state aid are unhappy now, wait until the suspension of this assistance works its way down to the unhappiest people of all – the taxpayers. Schools and local government won’t be closed – and, in fact, we wouldn’t want them closed – but with cuts in aid to school districts and municipalities, it’s you, me and the guy next door who’ll be socked with higher taxes to make up the difference.
We’ve got to have that money to educate the children because the kids are our future and had nothing to do with making the current crisis, right? We’ve got to fund law enforcement agencies to keep ourselves safe, right? We have to fund Medicaid for poor people, right? We must continue funding our libraries, right? We want to make sure homeless people don’t freeze, right? We want the state parks to remain open for our enjoyment, right? It’s not even winter yet, but we want our highway departments fully staffed and equipped when the next snow falls, right? We’ve got to pay our municipal workers, right? We have to feed hungry people, right?
We’ve got to pay salaries to our elected officials, right? Uh, wait a second; hold that last thought.
Let us agree that it’s payback time. Remember earlier this year when the 62 members of the State Senate proved their incompetence as they forced the end of important legislative business by closing the Senate for a month? Remember how those ladies and gentlemen yammered about what they called “reform” and what the rest of us knew was lust for power?
Those geniuses in the Senate owe 20 million New Yorkers for their bipartisan temper tantrum, and so a modest proposal.
Governor Paterson could more than double the state’s cash on hand by withholding the $4.9 million that the 62 senators get every year. (Each receives $79,000, with members of the leadership getting a little more; would you believe it?) In this way, he could defer only $745,100,000 to the schools and towns. It’s a pittance in the great scheme of things, but wouldn’t it make you happy to know the senators are suffering some of the pain that we’re all feeling?
Let Paterson be sued. It would be refreshing to put a couple of members of the State Senate in a witness chair, under oath, and have them describe what it is they actually do to merit a salary 48 percent higher than the pay most of their constituents get.
The extra money won’t help New York much. But making life a little difficult, maybe a little embarrassing, for the members of the State Senate might be a lot of fun. Make them hire attorneys. Make them go to their in-laws for a loan to tide them over until they get a check from whatever it is they do when they’re not being senators.
Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com
Tags: Jeffrey Page
December 18th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Great idea!
Let a lawsuit be filed in state Supreme Court, where thousands of dollars will then be spent at the trial level. Any decision will then go to the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, where establishment of the record on appeal and legal fees will put hundreds of thousands of tax dollars into the pockets of lawyers (many of whom who will be state legislators).
Then, if the case goes to the Court of Appeals, costs will skyrocket, giving untold more taxpayer dollars to the lawyers.
And the Legislature will win.
The courts will have no choice but to rule in favor of the state constitution. It states the salary of legislators may not be increased or diminished during their term of office. It says nothing about whether they have to do their jobs or not; only that their salaries cannot be withheld or changed: they must be paid what the salary was when they took office.
So thousands upon thousands of the precious, scarce tax dollars about which you purport to be concerned will go to lawyers in a meaningless court battle whose end result is already clearly established in New York case law.
I’m not certain how this lawsuit would benefit taxpayers.
December 25th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
It’s time to enact a law that says members of the senate and assembly must earn salaries no larger than the salary of the average person whom he/she represents. Add up the salaries of all the workers in the representative’s district and and divide by the number of workers. That figure is the representative’s salary. Let these folks learn how to wash their own cars, clean their own houses, mow their own lawns, and shop using coupons. Then, and only then, can they truly represent the people in their district. The problem? Who’s going to bell the cat?