Democratic elected officials are a squalid bunch, generally, but there are depths within depths. The ultimate abyss, the sewer of all sewers, has got to be the New York State Assembly, a body of 150 squirming maggots and fly-blown fungi, of whom 106 are Democrats, 63 of them from districts in my adopted hometown, New York City. The leader of these stercoraceous Assembly Democrats is one Sheldon Silver, shown above, who "represents" a district in lower Manhattan and has made a career out of betraying the city that sent him up the river (not, alas, in the slang sense of the term).
Our Mayor, Republican Mike Bloomberg, is a rather nasty Napoleonic little man. But like Napoleon, he occasionally has a good idea. His most recent good idea was a "congestion pricing" charge to drive a car into the most crowded parts of Manhattan, along the lines of similar (and highly successful) measures in London, Stockholm, and a number of other cities.
I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that this would the best thing in urban transit since the invention of the subway. And if you're any kind of an environmentalist, you've got to applaud anything that strikes a blow at driver entitlement and the hegemony of the car.
Miracle of miracles, our City Council endorsed the plan -- though it's probably the runner-up to the Assembly in the political squalor sweepstakes.
But since like most American cities, New York is a mighty Gulliver hogtied by statehouse Lilliputians, the plan had to be approved by the legislature in Albany. Home rule? Self-government? Local control? If you live in a large American city, these are empty phrases.
And when the plan got to Albany -- you guessed it -- Sheldon Silver and the Assembly Democrats killed it. Killed it without even a vote. They met behind closed doors and decided privately not even to bring the thing to the floor of the Assembly.
The truly delightful thing in this story is this: The Republican minority leader in the Assembly had offered the votes of all 42 Republican members in support of the measure. So Shelly Silver would only have had to come up with 33 Democrats besides himself in order to pass it.
This much he could have done in his sleep; Silver is a mighty dispenser of patronage and committee appointments and the consequent opportunities for what George Washington Plunkitt, another New York politician, called "honest graft". And he controls the legislative agenda. If you ever want to get a measure passed, or even voted on, in Albany, stay on Shelly's good side.
Why did Shelly plant yet another dagger in his hometown's back? Who knows? Why did he help Upstate legislators repeal the city's "commuter tax" a few years back? No doubt somebody will tell all these stories some day, but by that time, who will care?
Maybe it's some little game he's playing with the Mayor. Or the Wall Street crowd who feel that they own the streets in his district -- though few of them live there -- got to him. Sure, these are people to whom an $8 "congestion charge" means absolutely nothing -- except on a gut level. You don't go to work on Wall Street unless you're very emotionally involved with money, and if you work there for any length of time, you develop a sense of entitlement that makes the average New Jersey driver look like St Francis.
But though the question of Shelly's motives is interesting, in a way, it's irrelevant to the larger point. The behavior of the New York State Assembly is a laboratory demonstration of what Democrats do when they're securely in office. Any slight lesser-evil coloration they might have had, or painted on, while in opposition, washes away as quickly as Tammy Faye Bakker's mascara.
Comments (15)
Isn't there a pattern where the tax dollars from the boondocks are used to fund the big city, though? That at least seems to be the case in Massachusetts.
Posted by StO | April 7, 2008 11:56 PM
Posted on April 7, 2008 23:56
Maybe Willy Thompson and Silver said fuck Bloomberg after all his dad was only half jewish, and russian at that. Also, like Spitzer (ALERT bad Jew non-practicing)he's one of those Harvard law faggots. Everyone knows its Brooklyn Law school all the way man! And of course if a man wants a blow job from Ben Franklin because he loves money so much, he'd also love to give mother nature a golden shower.
Posted by David D | April 8, 2008 7:51 AM
Posted on April 8, 2008 07:51
StO -- That's certainly not true of New York. The money flows the other way here. Though suburbanites all have a fixed belief that we're all welfare queens and they are supporting us.
Posted by MJS | April 8, 2008 9:42 AM
Posted on April 8, 2008 09:42
We must be living in the Stercoraceous Age.
The Times said IIRC that the natives were restless in the outer boroughs and suburbs because the plutocrats in Manhattan didn't have to pay anything--that being the case, why didn't Bloomberg make a deal and make Manhattanites (in upper tax brackets--is there any other kind any more?) also pay a parking fee in general? In a Stercoraceous Age, you have to make Satanic deals to accomplish anything. Isn't that a basic principle of Lesser-Evillism and the American polity?
Posted by Saxo | April 8, 2008 10:25 AM
Posted on April 8, 2008 10:25
That anti-congestion scheme would be a great idea if it somehow could be prorated by income...i.e. poor (read here ordinary) people $8, wall streeters $1000. Barring that though, it's just another case of top-down class warfare...
Posted by Tim D | April 8, 2008 10:45 AM
Posted on April 8, 2008 10:45
Tim D -- I don't follow. Should (for example) the subway fare be graduated by income?
Posted by MJS | April 8, 2008 10:56 AM
Posted on April 8, 2008 10:56
MJS - that might not be a bad idea.
But in all seriousness, I always view these kinds of taxes as reactionary for the very reason you alluded to above in your article. The rich get a pass by virtue of, well being rich, whereas people living on far more modest incomes are nickel and dimed to death (which seems to me to be the reason that a goodly amount of people opposed it). I'm all for limiting traffic and the use of cars, and taxes may very well be a good means to that wonderful end, but only if those taxes are used to offset negative impacts by radically improving, upgrading and increasing public transit within the affected area.
Although, Dawson maybe the person to ask about this, since he's currently writing a book on it...
Posted by Tim D | April 8, 2008 4:46 PM
Posted on April 8, 2008 16:46
To Saxo's question -- The congestion plan did include revoking a sales tax exemption on parking for Manhattanites. Of course there's already a fairly steep parking tax, unless you're lucky enough to find a free spot -- which is, of course, an outrageous anomaly to start with. Here, take 100 square feet of the world's priciest real estate for your Hummer! Our treat!
Posted by MJS | April 8, 2008 5:15 PM
Posted on April 8, 2008 17:15
"The money flows the other way here...."
"following the money
up thru the "tax estuary " pipes
and back around and out again
thru the sub rosa rent effluentia
can be
well... a nasty bit of business"
doctor mobius
Posted by op | April 9, 2008 8:18 AM
Posted on April 9, 2008 08:18
"The rich get a pass by virtue of
well being rich"
rich v poor ???
i suggest jobbled vs exploiters
is the linea rouge
manhattan is filled with
thread bare
scapejob rentier boho loons.. .
most but
the sorry residium
of their own and several fantasia
i say cull em and cull em quick
nueva york gothic
needs
not a subsidy
especially to its surplus
crum feeding make it no where gargoyles
round em up out of their rental holes
like those gals down there in that
holy jack texas compound
all 400 k or so of em
give em a ticker tape parade
down wall street
and then send em to the boondocks
rusticate em
employ em trapping mosquitos
and cuttin underbrush
in places like ...say... upper michigan
ahh the pol pot vision
dies hard in me
Posted by op | April 9, 2008 8:33 AM
Posted on April 9, 2008 08:33
some one besides father smythe
seems to know
what manner of age
a "Stercoraceous " one be
talk about a new people tell
i say
we flush this inky feelered
wood tick out
and order up
a purgative
or at least a tedious sequence of tasks
h
like errrr reading pogo strips... for a thousand
consecutive nites
ps
"saxo" is it
why i'll give you a "saxo "
you 6 legged imp
Posted by op | April 9, 2008 8:47 AM
Posted on April 9, 2008 08:47
i really get offended
by this father smarmy shit...
"a dense and high urban habitude
is better for our several souls "
what a mind set
very very round headish and retrograde
the city is fast becoming
a thing of the fugitive past
soon we hu caps
will cover all the earth's dry
surfaces
but just one story high
one continue -us layer of gracious
country livin'
spread out smooth and easy
across the open face
of a bare naked mother nature
like so much
fresh egg salad
on a packed in fleet of wonder bread
Posted by op | April 9, 2008 4:53 PM
Posted on April 9, 2008 16:53
"unless you're lucky enough to find a free spot -- which is, of course, an outrageous anomaly to start with. Here, take 100 square feet of the world's priciest real estate for your Hummer! Our treat"
now that hits a nerve
in my attack trained
supply meets demand of a head
meter charges outght to be set so spaces are always likely to appear on any block necessary
what manner of tariff rate might that entail
just ask the silk hat types
who'll be paying it
this
btw
is the last request
the director of the vickrey institute
will allow me to answer today
Posted by op | April 9, 2008 5:00 PM
Posted on April 9, 2008 17:00
op, I kind of wish you would condense your five consecutive comments into one coherent post. Surely there's enough there.
Posted by StO | April 9, 2008 10:27 PM
Posted on April 9, 2008 22:27
Although I find myself in agreement with much (most?) of the opinions in this blog, this time I don't. I'm a resident of Manhattan and was opposed to "congestion pricing." I was in London some months ago when the congestion pricing debate was heating up in NY. Noticed that it was working well in London, that is, far fewer cars on Oxford Street in the afternoon of a midweek day than one finds in Manhattan. But the cars that were on the road--zipping by at comfortable speeds without the annoyance of other cars--were largely luxury cars. Mercedes, the odd Rolls Royce, Rovers, Beemers, etc. The road was a playground for the very rich to drive. Rarely did an ordinary Toyota, Fiat, etc., drive by. It would make me sick to see such a scene in front of me every day in NYC. I wrote to Sheldon Silver (who "represents" my district) and asked him not to let the plan come to a vote. I was happy when it didn't come to a vote.
Posted by out of the loop | April 18, 2008 1:19 PM
Posted on April 18, 2008 13:19