In a follow up to what I wrote about a few days ago, I read an interesting commentary by Tom Golisano in today’s "Opinions" section of the Buffalo News. Golisano is owner of the Buffalo Sabres, and is a staunch advocate for reform in New York State government. Golisano is also one of the latest New York ex-pats, departing for the lower taxes and sunnier skies of Florida.
As a wealthy New Yorker, Golisano is seeing his tax rates increased as Governor David Patterson and the rest of Albany attempts to fund this fiscal mess of a state. Golisano claims just under $14,000 in savings per day just by getting out of here.
What I liked most about Golisano’s article is that it breaks down the tax burden for every individual into understandable terms and provides benchmarks from previous state budgets. It’s most scary in the grand scheme of things to see how the state budget has nearly doubled in 10 years from $72.7 billion in 1999 to today’s $131.8 billion. Those are numbers I can’t even comprehend. The article continues to analyze how this budget is used (services like education and Medicaid) and how it’s ultimately failing citizens and state alike. Comparison and contrast to Florida’s seeming fiscal prudence is also given plenty of treatment.
In a state where taxes continuously go up, the weather is crappy most of the year, and road salt rusts out our cars, you have to wonder: is living here really worth it? Is the grass truly greener elsewhere in the country, most notably Florida? (Which is heavily populated with ex-New Yorkers.) I see more jobs where I could actually use my Communications degree in places like Florida, and this just when I search the likes of Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.
Murray Light (former Buffalo News editor) further mentioned in his op-ed today that there’s only one state whose fiscal circumstances are more dire than New York’s. Can you guess it? As the Governator said (insert Austrian accent here), “Everything is bigger in Cali-forn-ya…”
No comments:
Post a Comment