NY Legislative Pay Raises: An Atrocious Abuse of the Public Trust | TEANewYork

A pay raise for our inept legislature? I don’t think so.

by Jul Thompson

The State of New York has the most dysfunctional Legislature of all the 50 states.  One need not look any further for evidence of that beyond the fact that we have simultaneously, among the highest overall tax burdens and highest poverty rates of anywhere in the nation.  With the egregious amount the average taxpayer pays, our streets should be lined with gold.  Or flowers.  But certainly not trash, and pockmarked with potholes you can drive a small truck into.

The state faces a $9 billion deficit, yet somehow, some way, every bit of revenue the State manages to raise through siccing IRS agents on restaurants to invent overblown receipts, or taxing the air we breathe, gets funneled into the black hole of Albany’s General Fund.  Where I live on Grand Island, I have to pay a toll to get home every day.  The bridges were paid for by 1963 with these tolls.  Yet violating its agreement, New York State, through the Thruway Authority, continues to collect $30 million annually on the Grand Island bridges alone.  $20 million goes to pay for some road repair (however substandard and  impermanent), the salaries and generous benefits of toll collectors, and $10 million is profit.  In the last ten years alone, NYS has  profited over $100 million, yet just two years ago, NYS HAD TO BORROW EVERY LAST CENT OF THE $54 MILLION IT TOOK TO REPAIR THE BRIDGES, at your expense.  Where did that money go?

NY Legislative Pay Raises: An Atrocious Abuse of the Public Trust | TEANewYork.

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