If the NYPD’s work slowdown is causing them not to make arrests “unless absolutely necessary”, then it means fewer arrests for public urination, selling loosies, walking while black, and the rest of the stuff that poor minority neighborhoods experience every day. Is that a bad thing? Matt Taibbi:
It’s incredibly ironic that the police have chosen to abandon quality-of-life actions like public urination tickets and open-container violations, because it’s precisely these types of interactions that are at the heart of the Broken Windows polices that so infuriate residents of so-called “hot spot” neighborhoods.
In an alternate universe where this pseudo-strike wasn’t the latest sortie in a standard-issue right-versus left political showdown, one could imagine this protest as a progressive or even a libertarian strike, in which police refused to work as backdoor tax-collectors and/or implement Minority Report-style pre-emptive policing policies, which is what a lot of these Broken Windows-type arrests amount to.
[…]It would be amazing if this NYPD protest somehow brought parties on all sides to a place where we could all agree that policing should just go back to a policy of officers arresting people “when they have to.”
Because it’s wrong to put law enforcement in the position of having to make up for budget shortfalls with parking tickets, and it’s even more wrong to ask its officers to soak already cash-strapped residents of hot spot neighborhoods with mountains of summonses as part of a some stats-based crime-reduction strategy.
Taibbi’s take on the Garner case is worth a read, too, as is his book The Divide. Matt Ford covers the same territory.
Patricia Kayden
If this slowdown leads to less harassment of minorities, I’m all for it. Garner and Brown would still be alive if this was implemented nationwide.
OzarkHillbilly
First linky no worky.
Keith G
Policing as fundraising needs to stop. Also, property tax as a way to finance basic services needs to be severely limited. These two methods of collecting revenue are severely unfair to the working poor. They are extraordinarily regressive.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
Try this one.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
Remember when Tailgunner Ted brought the drama recently, and his grandstanding allowed Harry Reid to get 20 or so stalled Obama nominees through the Senate and confirmed?
This NYPD work slowdown strikes me as a similar occurrence; winger/authoritarian acts that have unintended consequences that are antithetical to the winger/authoritarian agenda.
I’d call this ironic, but I’d hate to be excoriated by commenters with stronger writing backgrounds as misusing that term (call this irrational fear Morrisette Syndrome).
Anyway, proceed NYPD.
samiam
What better way to start 2015 than for Markymux to do some whoring for Taibbi’s latest soon to be on the discount shelf book.
Gin & Tonic
@Keith G: It’s been a while since I kept up with NYC budgetary issues in detail, but since there is a city income tax (including on non-residents working in the city) the other taxes, such as property tax, tend to be lower than in surrounding communities. NYC is thus less reliant on the most regressive funding sources.
Nicole
@Gin & Tonic: Not exactly- NYC employees who live outside of the city pay income tax, but I don’t think commuters who work for city-based businesses do. They used to pay a commuter tax, but it was ended in 1999 and fat chance it’ll ever come back. And they should pay one; they spend a third of their day here; they should support the services they make use of.
There was a good piece some years back about how cities got screwed when suburbs were allowed to establish themselves as separate from cities, because the wealthier tax base goes to the suburbs, and pays taxes there, even if they work in the city. I’ll see if I can track down the link. It might have been on Slate (which surprises me, come to think of it).
But you’re right that city income tax makes for lower property taxes; they aren’t bad here. Of course, you have to be a millionaire to afford anything in Manhattan but hey, there’s always a trade off.
chopper
@samiam:
Swing, and a miss. Still hungover?
priscianus jr
It’s not amusing to me to see public urination put in the same class as harassing minorities.
I remember all too well the 1970s when it became fashionable to piss in subway stations. Every subway station smelled like stale piss. And that was just one of the countless sensory signs of civil disfunction that marred our fair city. It’s a lot better now.
Last time I heard, it wasn’t against the law to be black and pissing on subway platforms isn’t a civil right. So Taibbi is being a little eoo clever here. The police need to do their job no more, no less. I don’t appreciate the arbitrary non-enforcement just to stick it to the mayor.
Amir Khalid
@Couldn’t Stand the Weather:
For what it’s worth, your use of “ironic” here is correct.
Emma
@samiam: Nope. He’s still not into you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Thanx.
Gin & Tonic
@Nicole: Property is not just in Manhattan. I think the tax comparison is most stark at the Queens/Nassau or Bronx/Westchester border, where you can have very similar houses with radically different property tax bills depending on which side of the county line they are on.
You’re right about the city non-resident tax, though. I said it’s ben a while, and I was confusing it with the state non-resident income tax, which is still in force.
Amir Khalid
@priscianus jr:
I think the issue wrt “walking while black” has to do with policies like stop and frisk which amounted to preferential harassment of nonwhite people under cover of policing policy, and might have been continuing in some fashion despite the official ban.
I think John Cole did mention, in a previous thread, a cop in his town who figured it was better to keep an eye on the rowdier local teenagers, and ensure they stayed out of major trouble, than to arrest them for every little violation. Especially when the latter meant more work for him and problems for the kids arising from their arrest records.
max
Especially when the latter meant more work for him and problems for the kids arising from their arrest records.
And the secret was, was that those kids were white.
It would be amazing if this NYPD protest somehow brought parties on all sides to a place where we could all agree that policing should just go back to a policy of officers arresting people “when they have to.”
The point of broken windows policy is to police the behavior of black people, so it won’t stop since they like doing that. Basically they turned NYC into a giant mall, which works from the point of view of keeping the rich people happy. Which is the other reason it won’t stop.
max
[‘But the strike isn’t aimed at liberals or blacks, it’s aimed at the suburban white support base.’]
Jack the Second
@Keith G: You could also implement, you know, progressive property taxation.
The problem with property taxes in most places is that they are a fixed percentage of your property value — they are flat taxes. This is what makes them regressive. Other than that, they’re wealth taxes, which is generally something progressives like.
I don’t know what the exact numbers should be, but what I’d like to see is progressive tax brackets for property taxes — token or no taxes on the lowest percentiles of property values, reasonable taxes on the middle majority, and then increasingly large tax burdens on the top percentiles of property tax values. A nice 10% tax on those hundred million dollar Manhattan penthouses will do good for the city, whether the billionaires pay it or stop bidding real estate up to such absurd levels.
Roger Moore
@priscianus jr:
The problem is that enforcement of “lifestyle” offenses is racially biased. If you give police discretion in who to cite and who to ignore, they can- and usually will- cite minorities far more than whites. If you decide to flood predominantly minority neighborhoods with police tasked with ticketing every trivial offense, it will produce a racially biased outcome even if the individual officers aren’t biased at all.
Thoughtful David
@priscianus jr:
I think the difference here is between “arresting” and “ticketing.” I think it would be perfectly valid to ticket someone for urinating in a subway, and that’s unlikely to end in someone’s death. Garner was killed when they tried to arrest him physically. Had they handed him a ticket for selling loosies, he’d still be alive, and he still would have been penalized. Instead, they tried to cuff him and drag him to the station. He didn’t appreciate that, and fought back.
Nicole
@Jack the Second: “Million dollar penthouses”? I think you mean $20 million dollar penthouses. One million will buy you a one-bedroom in mid-Manhattan. On a lower floor. We (briefly) tried to look at purchasing an HFDC coop, which are coop apartments available to those who make $100,000 or less a year (if you have kids; if you do not have kids the threshold is $70K or $80K I think), and you were still looking at $400K for 800 sf two-bedrooms north of 145th Street that needed a lot, a lot of work. And the financials on a lot of those buildings required all cash purchases because banks wouldn’t offer mortgages on them.
Roger Moore
@Jack the Second:
You can also achieve something of the same result by exempting some amount of property value from tax. Most states with property taxes actually have “homestead exemptions” that are supposed to achieve just that, but in a lot of cases the real value of the exemption has been allowed to erode to the point that it’s almost meaningless. It would also be important to set the exemption based on the local real estate market; if you do it statewide, the value in big cities will be vanishingly small. The same limitations obviously apply to any attempt to make taxes more progressive.
OzarkHillbilly
@Thoughtful David: The closest thing to “fighting back” that I saw Garner do, was not allowing a cop to grab his forearm by pulling it back.
Gin & Tonic
@Nicole: He said “hundred million.”
Jack the Second
@Nicole: Sorry, that should read $100 million penthouses, or maybe hundred-million dollar penthouses.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jack the Second: Slum lords everywhere agree.
gene108
Having gotten a few parking tickets in NYC, I can say that this is not a burdensome problem for those trying to park in NYC.
There are signs, fire hydrants are usually visible, and there’s yellow paint on the curb to let you know where not park.
What I do wonder is that as people no longer have to move their cars to allow street cleaning to happen (no tickets, why bother moving it), you are probably going to end up with a dirtier city as a side result.
Bobby B.
When the Police State takes a break from harassment and murder, its subjects should be properly grateful and stop resisting.
askew
@priscianus jr:
The Chicago El is disgusting and reeks of urine. Wish the city cared enough to try to clean it up, but overall the city is pretty gross. Loved living there. Hated how gross the city was. Really surprised when I visit other large cities at how much cleaner they are than Chicago.
Jack the Second
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, slum lords could benefit from progressive taxation. Even if you try to base the tax levels on total property holdings, your smart slum lord will spin off a holding company for each building and make it effectively impossible to recognize the size of their holdings.
The best fix is probably to use owner-occupied tax credits to combat slum lords, but the existence of slum lords doesn’t mean that progressive property taxes are more equitable than regressive property taxes.
WindyCityCat
@askew: If you think Chicago is really gross…then you’ve never been to New York. I can’t tell you the number of times people visiting from out of town have mentioned how clean the city is compared to others, especially considering it’s the 3rd largest city in the country.
chopper
@askew:
Check out NYC some time. It makes Chicago positively spotless.
Nicole
@gene108:
The moving the car every two days is such a hassle. My stepmom more than once offered me their very old Camry to take to the city and I told her not in a million years. Not only is insurance expensive, even on a 20 year old car, but I don’t want to get up early every two days to move the car and then have to move it back in a few hours. Bleah. The older I get, the more valuable sleep is to me.
jharp
“backdoor tax-collectors”
That is exactly what they are. And a major league fuckup for the NYPD to let that cat out of the bag.
Nicole
@Jack the Second: What’s even more infuriating is that a lot of these very expensive penthouses aren’t even lived in; they’re places for wealthy Europeans and Asians to stash money because real estate taxes are so low. That’s an area where I think NYC could do better in taxation- if it’s not your primary residence, then tax it more.
pluege
Oh dear! this means the NYPD is chucking do-nothing Rudy Ghouliani’s biggest and proudest achievement: harassing the poor, the disadvantaged, and those in need of psychological services.
Nicole
@Jack the Second: Ah, I misread. Not for the first, nor hundredth time in my life! Apologies.
priscianus jr
@Thoughtful David: “I think it would be perfectly valid to ticket someone for urinating in a subway, and that’s unlikely to end in someone’s death. Garner was killed when they tried to arrest him physically. Had they handed him a ticket for selling loosies, he’d still be alive, and he still would have been penalized.”
I agree. Although if somebody is ticketed, they have to show up in court. Assuming they actually do, which is a big assumption in the case of the kind of people who piss in subways, the policeman who issued the ticket has to show up too, otherwise the case is dismissed. It is unlikely the cop will be there. For a misdemeanor I think they have to come to court twice, which is inconvenient, but that’s all.
The problem with selling loosies is that in terms of the law, it’s a more serious offense than public urination, it’s evasion of state tax. Legitimate vendors complained because Garner was interfering with their business. But in terms of disturbance of the peace, it’s nothing, he wasn’t physically harming or threatening anyone or anything. And here’s where the procedure was at fault, because the police used excessive force and poor judgment considering the situation.
In the bigger picture of enforcement, it’s the old story of going after the little guy. Interstate tobacco smuggling is big business, and the cops, instead of going after the organized smugglers, go after the the small-fry street vendor.
This analysis explains it very well:
http://www.quora.com/U-S-Politics-5/Why-was-Eric-Garner-targeted-by-police-for-tax-evasion-regarding-selling-single-cigarettes
pluege
Is it just me or does anyone else find the silence odd that police pick and choose what laws to enforce?
If its good enough for police, shouldn’t everyone be able to decide what part of their job they want to do and still stay employed at full pay?
Nicole
@Gin & Tonic: And I wasn’t intending to correct here, just clarifying. I certainly am only aware of it because I live here. I also find it just bizarre and unfair that teachers, policemen and firefighters who work for NYC aren’t required to live here, but social workers, transportation employees, etc., are. And of course, the majority of the city employees who fall under the residency restrictions are female and minority. Seems like the lower the pay on the city job, the more likely you’re required to live here to keep it. Bleah.
raven
You just figured that how huh?
priscianus jr
@chopper: Check out NYC some time. It makes Chicago positively spotless.
If you think so now, you should have see NY 30-40 years ago. Or maybe you did.
There’s a serious point here though. The demographics of NY have changed greatly since then. Now people are paying a fortune for their digs in large parts of the city, and they expect service. Most of these people voted for De Blasio, So whatever Lynch may think, I don’t see this going well for the NYPD in the long run.
The PBA and the other police unions especially will be blamed. Those who are anti-labor will see this as typical disruptive city union tactics. Those who are pro-labor will remember that the NY police unions are not and never have been part of the labor movement.
Roger Moore
@pluege:
I don’t think it’s odd at all. It’s widely understood that there simply aren’t enough police in the world to catch every minor offense, so we’re stuck with some level of selective enforcement. It’s baked deeply enough into the basic situation that nobody thinks it’s worth commenting on.
Goblue72
Property taxes are generally NOT considered regressive since they target the property-owning social classes. In a city like NYC, where the majority of the population rents. The bulk of homeowners is composed of middle class, upper middle class and upper class households. The working poor in NYC do not by and large own, they rent.
It’s simply incorrect to call for lowering property taxes as some sort of progressive tax policy.
On the other hand, sales taxes are generally considered regressive as they are both a flat rate AND the types of retail transactions they affect are a larger percentage of a working poor’s household budget then a wealthier household’s budget.
priscianus jr
@raven: “police pick and choose what laws to enforce?
You just figured that how huh?
I didn’t just figure that out now, no. But from the tone of your comment I’m sure that next time a cop pulls you over for speeding or running a red light, then lets you off with a warning, you ‘ll abide by the letter of the law and insist he give you a ticket.
brantl
Taibbi’s nailed it.
Gin & Tonic
@Nicole: Are teachers exempted? Everybody I know who teaches in NYC lives in NYC. Maybe that’s just coincidence or small sample size.
FlipYrWhig
@pluege: Choosing what to enforce has been the nature of law pretty much since Hammurabi.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
@Amir Khalid:
Cool.
My phobia may soon be cured.
It won’t happen, but I still wish the cops around here would only enforce the law when they had to do so. It’d save everyone a lot of time and aggravation.
I note without rancor that few if any people are urinating on the local subway platforms. I’ve seen no “clean yer windshield” guys, either. Panhandlers are out here, but nothing too crazy happens. Every so often, some kids will do something stupid (flash mob appeared in a Germantown convenience store a while back, and got caught on video stealing candy and ice cream), but I don’t advocate a Missouri-style Maryland State police dragnet with DHS support to track down those kids.
Now, these companies and utilities who routinely violate the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts… those guys I want arrested. I think New York has it right regarding fracking.
This concludes this morning’s rant. We now return you to your regularly scheduled vitriol.
ruemara
1. NYC is eerily spotless compared to when I was growing up. But some parts of every city will be super gross.
2. Eric Garner did not resist arrest. He pulled his hand back when grabbed after repeated requests to be left alone. He was also not selling loosies. In fact, at the time Garner was simply standing there after breaking up a fight. No good deed.
3. I was told not to bring up racial disparities in reactions to crime by law enforcement, with regard to the latest Wal-Mart shooting, because “don’t make it about race, we’ve had enough of that already”. The fact is, your child can blow away his mom and all you get is a condolences pat, “oh well” & but a black family will have someone in trouble. This entire justice system is biased and corrupted, with race being a huge factor. Until more people keep talking and do what’s needed to even shame some of these unions and officers, things will get worse. What politician will ever reign them in if they see total support in the main voting blocks for this?
Dave
@FlipYrWhig: And honestly it needs to be to a degree I really dislike zero tolerance policies(though have some sympathy to arguments that it is the only way you ever end up with equitable enforcement). It’s impossible to write the number of laws you need for a community, especially a densely populated city, without some flexibility on the part of the individual at the point of decision. The problem of course is that factors like race, poverty, etc have far to much impact and the sort of crime that occurs in the public eye tends to be the sort committed by poorer people plus cognitive bias etc. Now if nuisance arrests are down 94% with little impact on public safety then those are almost certainly occurring at far to high a rate and other perverse incentives are a problem as well (quotas revenue etc).
Edit also we are more likely to see say an black male acting angry at a situation as a crime than a middle class white lady who is just being upset etc biases and whatnot.
Aimai
@priscianus jr: but its really a structural issue–a war against the poor issue. Paris has pissoirs for men. And most modern cities have publicly maintained bathrooms for women and children. In the absence of these ameneties people are going to have to relieve themselves somewhere. Wealthy people can use hotel bathrooms but what about the rest of the city? Instead of individualizing and criminalizing a generic problem why not solve it for everyone?
Elie
In my opinion, the only thing that the PBS has done is set themselves up for having to actually having to face their behavior on a variety of actions. This was almost out of “The Art of War” as how they took a superior position when the two officers were murdered, and converted it to a weaker position which now makes it harder for them to look like noble, wronged parties and converted them to whiny cave dwellers with obvious instinct to not do their jobs and/or to do them with a shitty attitude. Who is going to believe them now when they argue the necessity of “having” to subdue someone using brute force. It is now obvious to all the mentality that has been driving their behavior and this is not going to do anything but be a loser for them. They had better get rid of their big mouth leader soon before he assures their continued slide in perception. What an idiot!
Mandalay
@Nicole:
I’m not following that argument at all. They already paying taxes where they live, and paying to travel into NYC to work.
Most commuters get off the train, sit in an office and work for 40 hours, and then go home. What city services are they using that would justify a commuter tax?
raven
@priscianus jr: Cool, you can judge tone from a post.
askew
@WindyCityCat:
I’ve never been to NYC. It’s on my bucket list, but I am waiting until I have money and they get their bedbug problem under control. My worst nightmare is bringing bedbugs home from vacation and into my house. Blech!
Nicole
@Gin & Tonic: Teachers are not required to live in the city. I know a lot who do, too, but they aren’t required. I know a lot who don’t, also. I think the more powerful unions were able to get the exemption (police, firefighters, teachers) and the less powerful unions weren’t.
Nicole
@Mandalay: Trash, sewage, police, fire, mass transit (many commuters drive into the city, but most take mass transit to a hub and then take the subway to the stop closest to their office).
Mind you, the State of New York is happy to levy on non-residents a tax for working in the state, but the City of New York, which is where most of these non-NY’ers work, is forbidden from taxing them.
D58826
@Mandalay: I think those office workers would be very upset ifFDNY asked for a credit card prior to responding to a fire or heart attack. While you may be in the city only 8 hours a day you still have access to city services.
Aimai
@Mandalay: they use the roads, subway, streets, police, hospitals, lights, courts, utilities…etc..etc…etc…
Lolis
Let’s be real. Cops do these things to pay for their own salaries and prove we need more cops as well. It is a game they play for selfish reasons as well. They are dumb to do the slowdown because it might prove we have way more cops then needed.
Gin & Tonic
@Mandalay: If they fall and break their ankle walking from the train station to their office, who takes them to the hospital? If they throw their empty coffee cup into a city trash receptacle, who empties the receptacle and where does the trash go? If their office catches fire, who puts the fire out? Who paves the sidewalk they walk on? Who plows the streets they cross when it snows?
kdaug
@samiam:
Fuck off, jackass
Mandalay
@D58826:
Sure, but that doesn’t mean commuters use them. Besides, those commuters are generally working for companies that are already paying taxes to NYC, and so they are already indirectly contributing to NY’s coffers.
The whole idea of a commuter tax just reeks of gouging and exploiting people simply because you can, as though commuters giving up their time, and paying for their travel, aren’t already doing enough. And it is doubly insidious because the places where the commuters live cannot charge a reciprocal tax on NYC residents when they visit.
Fuck commuter taxes with a rusty chainsaw.
Mandalay
@Gin & Tonic:
And who pays for all those services when an NYC resident visits the suburbs?
……….*crickets*……..
kc
That quoted bit makes it sound like residents of “hot spot” neighborhoods are cool with public urination. Is that true?
worn
@Mandalay: “…paying to travel into NYC to work…”
The cost of the train and/or subway ticket generally does not even pay for the full cost of the ride provided, what with they being subsidized services and all.
D58826
@Mandalay: Well in the Philly area, there is the city wage tax. A levy almost as beloved as Ebola or the Dallas Cowboys. In later years there was a split rate for residents and non residents. Still not popular but at least a nod in the direction that non-residents didn’t use city services for the full day. Many of the suburban governments levied Occupation taxes on people working in their jurisdiction. They weren’t as high as the city tax but it did make city folks pay a tax if they worked in the burbs.
Bottom line is no one likes taxes but someone has to pay for the services, airports, etc. You can expand the complaint to include all those people who pay school taxes and don’t have or never had kids in the schools. Or the Catholic parents who have to pay both school taxes and tuition to the church school.
I’ve been listening to this argument all my life and short of moving to your own desert island there is no ‘FAIR’ way to do it. ;
Roger Moore
@Aimai:
I was going to make a similar point. Just try to find an open public restroom in the middle of the night. Most cities deliberately close their public toilets for the night specifically to make life as difficult as possible for homeless people, presumably on the theory that they’ll somehow manage to find jobs and homes- or at least move and become somebody else’s problem- if we make life miserable enough for them. Naturally, this winds up affecting anyone else who happens to be out and about and needs to use the facilities. The need to urinate does not miraculously disappear when the restrooms close, so we wind up with a public urination problem.
Lurking Canadian
@Mandalay: You don’t see a difference between “visiting” and “spending half of one’s waking life”?
J.D. Rhoades
@Roger Moore:
Until President Obama makes it a policy, then the wingnuts scream like murdered bunnies and act as if they’d never heard of “prosecutorial discretion.”
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@ruemara:
The argument I’ve seen from a few people is that a white guy in Long Beach (CA) was shot and killed by police for squirting them with a garden hose, so therefore there’s no racial disparity. My question is, why should squirting a cop with a garden hose be a capital offense?
I still don’t understand why, when equal treatment is discussed, the automatic assumption by white people is that it will require more white people to be shot dead for idiotic reasons. Hey, I know — why don’t we try not shooting anyone dead for idiotic reasons, regardless of skin color?
kc
@priscianus jr:
Yeah, I agree. I’m guessing if someone pissed on the sidewalk in front of some swanky tower on Park Avenue, the policing would be a little less laissez-faire.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Because the goal is to keep Those People firmly under our boots. If they start thinking they have the right not to be killed- even when it was done by a policeman, or an aristocrat- then they’ll start demanding all kinds of other rights.
Mandalay
@D58826:
Sure, but that is true everywhere, not just in NYC, but other places don’t have commuter taxes. Commuters (by definition) are in NYC solely because of their job, and their work enriches the companies they work for, and those companies pay taxes to NYC arising from the fruit of the labor of the commuters. So if NYC wants to increase their revenue they should increase the taxes on the businesses that the commuters work for. That is the fair way to do it, because there is no readily enforceable reciprocal mechanism for NYC residents to be taxed when they make use of public services outside of NYC.
Imposing a commuter tax would have the direct effect of making NYC a less attractive place to do business.
kc
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Yes. Though I continue to be amazed by the number of white people I encounter who will defend any level of police force, against anyone, for just about any reason.
By golly, they’re so unbiased, they don’t care WHO the cops shoot!
Roger Moore
@kc:
Only because they’re pretty sure it will be a minority or a trashy white person who deserves it. They’re sure that people like them don’t get shot by the police, so they’re not worried about it.
Renie
@worn: Not sure what you mean by ‘ride’ but commuter fares are horrible. My husband commutes to work and my daughter commutes to NYC for school; for each we pay $300 a month for LIRR and then they each take the subway from Penn Station. Plus we are stuck paying for parking at the train station. My part time salary goes to just paying their commutation!
Keith G
@Goblue72:
you should really speak to my landlord and tell him that the property tax on the unit that I rent from him should be paid from his personal profit and not from the increases in rent that he charges me everytime tax rates increase.
chopper
@priscianus jr:
NY was a huge garbage dump back then. it’s better now but it’s still way gross. the streets are generally lined with garbage every single day. people just throw their litter on the sidewalk as if it’s meant to go there.
the sidewalks are so dirty that even hurricanes blowing through don’t get them clean. it’s amazing.
catclub
@J.D. Rhoades: I am disappointed that liberals have not asked wingnuts why they have not funded immigration enforcement to the level needed to deport em all. It appears that would make the ICE budget about 20 times as big as it is now.
Mandalay
@Lurking Canadian:
I don’t see any qualitative difference. If you want commuters to pay for the privilege of working in NYC and using its services, then the residents of NYC should pay for the privilege of visiting the suburbs and using their services.
But it’s all pretty small fry in the scheme of things and the costs, logistics and ill-will associated with a commuter tax make it a very foolish idea. If the city wants more revenue then increase taxes on the businesses the commuters work for. There would be a nice ironic twist if that provoked the businesses to leave, and relocate to the suburbs.
catclub
@Renie: 1. Who do you think should be paying those fares?
2. Now compare with driving into NYC and parking. I suspect that would be even more. The conclusion I draw is that commuting by public transit is cheaper than the horrible cost of driving.
Can you park for $20/day? I doubt it.
Aimai
@Mandalay: but the numbers run the other way.
D58826
@Mandalay: Well here in Charlotte and from what I understand in other sun belt cities, there is no commuter tax. The city simply annexes the surrounding suburban area once the population density gets high enough to make it worthwhile. And like magic no need for an out of city commuter tax. Maybe NYC should annex the Hampton s?
Roger Moore
@D58826:
They’ll have a hard time annexing across state lines into New Jersey and Connecticut, where a lot of the commuters come from. What is really needed is some government body that covers the whole metropolitan area and can provide services that are used in that broader area.
Kay
This was possibly the dumbest idea I have ever seen applied to juveniles, and juveniles are subjected to A LOT of dumb ideas :)
Mandalay
@Aimai:
What numbers are those? Commuters directly contribute to the success of businesses that pay taxes to NYC. Commuters are already a source of revenue of NYC.
But if you want to be picky about it, it is the NYC residents who visit the suburbs where the commuters live, and consume their public services but contribute nothing, who are the leeches.
gvg
@Mandalay: A commuter tax is partly INTENDED to make NYC a less attractive place to go unless you need to including making some businesses decide to relocate. Commuter taxes happen in very congested cities who really have no good options with dealing with the traffic. London imposed a sort of auto billing by camera robots and license plates that made a lot of their traffic go away. People went AROUND London instead of through if they didn’t need to actually go to London. Most non rich people who actually had to go into London center to work, took the tubes even if they didn’t before. Its part of why they have cameras everywhere.
Even people who don’t think they are using city services are. If you don’t get robbed, thats because the cops and courts have by prior actions set up a society that is civilized enough that you aren’t in dire danger every time you set foot outside your door and if you are a business, your customers can actually get to you safely. Roads are needed to bring in supplies and customers as well as employees. If you purchase supplies and the other party doesn’t deliver, he doesn’t get to keep the money due to enforced contract laws. Cities have a lot of benefits that we have had so long we don’t even realize how they are created-currancy that is reliable, banks, trust in institutions….these things cost money. Suburbs provide them too to a degree but the costs are more related to the actual residents so they don’t need commuter taxes.
And I wasn’t kidding about the intended effect is to make some people and businesses go away. If your profit for being there isn’t higher than the costs, then you should do business in a less crowded place logically and the businesses that DO get more benfit will also do better if the crowds aren’t as unpleasant and the travel not as slow.
John Revolta
@Mandalay: You are now officially talking nonsense. Stop digging.
kc
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, I think that’s likely true.
D58826
Well who says the grand jury system doesn’t work in NY – Grand Jury Indicts The Man Who Filmed Eric Garner’s Death
D58826
@Roger Moore: Philly has the same problem. It draws commuters from the three surrounding Pa. counties as well as south Jersey and Northern Delaware.
When the Navy base was still open, the S. Jersey folks would hop the ferry on the NJ side of the river, spend the day on federal property and then go home. They never were under the city’s jurisdiction so they never had to pay the tax. Nice scam while it lasted
Tree With Water
The first thought that occurred to me yesterday upon hearing of another plane flying a banner, this one demanding DeBlasio “apologize”, was that the cops are beginning to feel the heat in realization they are losing the PR battle. It was a feeble demand to make, particularly in light of the near universal perception that DeBlasio has done nothing whatsoever to warrant his apologizing for anything. I don’t see New Yorkers tolerating such behavior over the long haul, either. The NYPD has miscalculated badly. Undoubtedly to their surprise, the public isn’t buying what they’re selling.
Aimai
@Mandalay: no: the numbers dint support this. Very few new yorkers commute out of the city to jobs.
lol
@Mandalay:
If there were enough people regularly visiting those suburbs to the point that they’re utilizing a disproportionate amount of services, then yes, they should figure a way to recoup money from the people using them. With tourists you obviously can’t do a commuter tax but you can do hotel and restaurant taxes.
That more cities don’t do it is more a function of politics than anything. DC would *love* to have a commuter tax on all the MD and VA residents that come into the city for work but can’t because of Congress. There are similar jurisdictional issues elsewhere.
Barry
@pluege: “If its good enough for police, shouldn’t everyone be able to decide what part of their job they want to do and still stay employed at full pay?”
If this was any other union, no politician would dare do other than condemn them, the ‘liberal media’ would be 100% in rabid oppposition, and the courts would have issued injunctions and fines by now.
Barry
@kc: “Yes. Though I continue to be amazed by the number of white people I encounter who will defend any level of police force, against anyone, for just about any reason.”
They don’t realize that most police officers could casually f*ck over their entire lives with ease. They assume that They are Not Involved.
AxelFoley
@ruemara:
Quia veritas supra.
MattR
@Nicole: They have actually relaxed the rules a couple years ago so all NYC employees only have to live in the 5 boroughs for the first two years they work for the city. After that, they are free to move to the immediate suburbs with some exceptions (I believe for high level political staff as well as the top rungs of executives at other city agencies)
Woodrowfan
I am in NYC now and although it’s dirty (the trash cans are overflowing from New Year’s Eve still) it’s way better than it was when I first visited 30-some years ago.
emjayay
@Renie: Those fares pay a third to a half of the actual cost of providing the service. You could live somewhere else in the country and the drive to work might be the same distance in the same car as a drive to the LIRR station. Your house might cost a third of what you paid. The job might pay a lot less too. You made your choice. You can make other choices.
Stop whining.
EriktheRed
Damn, have y’all read some of the comments after the Taibbi article on the Garner case?
Fuckin’ wingnuts just come on without even reading the article and just spout off prepared talking points.
Mandalay
@Aimai:
That’s completely irrelevant. You want commuters to pay taxes where they live, and pay taxes to work in NYC, and subsidize those from NYC who use the services where they live – a triple whammy. I know it’s only January 2nd, but I doubt if I’ll see a more absurd and unjust proposal on BJ in 2015.
There’s a reason no city is doing what you suggest: it’s a really stupid idea.
Mandalay
@lol:
And what threshold constitutes “enough”? And how would you recoup the money? The idea is inherently unfair, and unworkable. No city should be taxing specific categories of people just because they can. They should find fairer and better ways of raising revenue. I live in South Florida, and even though I benefit from the taxes imposed on tourists, I think that is wrong as well.
Renie
@catclub: I was commenting to the fact he said the fares are subsidized. If there are, it is still extremely expensive. I said nothing about who should or should not be paying them.
Renie
@emjayay: Whining? That’s a cheap shot. That’s a huge chunk of our net income. I guess you don’t realize jobs are not that easy to come by that we can just pick up and move and find a cheaper commute and a job at the same time.
jefft452
@Mandalay:
“You want commuters to pay taxes where they live, and pay taxes to work in NYC”
When the commuter tax was in force I could deduct what I paid to NYS and NYC from what I owed to CT
When it was stricken down, my total tax did not go down, just more of it went to CT and none of it went to NYC
The commuter tax was a fair and just tax
Full metal Wingnut
@Nicole: But waaaaah it’s no fair because I live in Joisey or Greenwich or wherever boo hooooo
Full metal Wingnut
@Nicole: They still pay income tax to the state of New York, even if they live in Jersey or Connecticut.
I believe Jersey allows you to deduct what you pay in income tax to New York, and since Jersey income tax is a little lower I believe most people who end up working in NY/living in NJ end up paying no Jersey income tax. But they pay property tax.
NY doesn’t credit NJ income tax though. So if you live in NY but work in NJ (as I used to, wife and I used to live and work in NYC, then I got laid off and the only job I could find was in Jersey) you get double taxed. Which I suppose is fair, best to just suck it up and live where you work if you want to avoid complicated and high taxes. But not always possible in a couple.
Full metal Wingnut
@Gin & Tonic: There are some very nice places in Queens. There are poor and working class neighborhoods of course but some wealthy areas as well.
Nicole
@Full metal Wingnut: Yeah, but it’s the city that bears the brunt of the cost of that many people coming in to work from out-of-state and do you think the city gets a fair percentage of that tax money from Albany?
I’ve been hit by that double tax thing when I worked in Jersey for a bit, too. I think I ended up owing the state of NJ a dollar, and my accountant warned me Jersey would come after me if I didn’t pay it. :)
Full metal Wingnut
@askew: Really? My impression visiting Chicago a couple times was that it was much cleaner than New York. But this was back in the Daley days, maybe things are different under Rahm.
Full metal Wingnut
@Nicole: Ha! I owed 1.00 to Jersey a couple times too. I don’t disagree, just adding some detail.
I thought that the MTA and Metro North were state-run, and bridges and tunnels were also a Jersey-NY state level thing. There’s still infrastructure and services that the city is responsible for, but there are major costs that don’t fall squarely on the city.
Nicole
\@Mandalay:
NYC’ers don’t “visit” the suburbs. (Maybe they rent a car to go to IKEA in Jersey, though I think there’s one in Queens now). In the past two years I think I’ve set foot on Jersey soil maybe 5 times, and Connecticut once. And as has been pointed out by other posters regarding tourism, when I go someplace to be a tourist, I pay plenty in hotel taxes, as do the tourists who come to NYC.
Full metal Wingnut
@Nicole: Yeah totally. Everything car related in NY is expensive. Everyone who’s halfway intelligent goes to Jersey when they have to rent one.
Full metal Wingnut
@Nicole: Yeah this is a bizarre response. Why on earth would I visit the suburbs when I didn’t live there or know anyone there? I had everything I needed within the city.
And not to mention, spending a couple hours driving to Elizabeth to get to IKEA (if you’re too cheap to pay NY sales tax at the one in Brooklyn) *does* entail using New Jersey infrastructure, BUT it is not in the same ballpark as commuters going into NYC EVERY WEEKDAY to make a living. Atrocious comparison.
worn
@Renie: By “ride” I was referencing the total cost to the relevant jurisdiction for providing any sort of fixed rail commuter services. As I understand it, commuter rail, be it actual trains, subways, streetcars, you name it, the price you pay for a ticket does not cover the actual cost of providing the service. For many reasons, cities have an interest in reducing the number of cars on their streets and have decided as a matter of public policy that it is worth funding via general taxation; in other words, even those who would never, ever set foot on the subway* still must fund the service. Much the same as funding the fire department, though almost all of us (thankfully) will never be in a position to have them extinguish conflagrations at our own residences. Fire prevention services were generally private & funded ala carte up until the dawn of the 20th century.
*not apocryphal; my cousin’s significant other is the daughter of a successful hedge fund manager and grew up & still lives on the upper east side. She has been on the subway exactly once in her entire ~3 decades on this earth.
I will also note that the above is not true for buses, at least insofar as I’ve read.
As to your specific situation, I would simply say that living and/or working in one of the most expensive cities on the planet is by definition going to be tremendously expensive. There is no way around this.
(sorry for the delayed response; on and off airplanes today as I wrap up the holidaze…)
Full metal Wingnut
@Aimai: I believe the MTA or whatever subsidiary runs the NYC subway is run by the state, to which people who work in NY pay taxes.
Full metal Wingnut
@Mandalay: That’s not how taxes work. You don’t pay for what you use. Your tax dollars fund public schools even if you don’t have kids, etc.
Full metal Wingnut
@Mandalay: And an NYC resident visits the suburbs because…they want to go to the IKEA in Elizabeth maybe one time, which is equivalent to traveling into NYC every day for work because…*crickets*
worn
@Renie: For the record, Renie, I understand & respect the fact that those commuting costs constitute a real & significant financial burden to your family. That sucks, of course. I also assume your husband commutes into the city because the pay is better than can be found on Long Island. Ditto for your daughter’s education.
I just don’t think there’s any way to get around the fact that interfacing with the Big Apple in most any way is just really fucking expensive.
mclaren
But this is the inevitable end result of the senile sociopath Reagan’s tax cuts of billionaires.
When progressive taxation ends, the only way to make up the shortfall is with regressive taxes. The single most regressive tax involves arresting some black guy for bullshit and then hitting him with a huge fine and fees for his stay in jail.
If you want to end this kind of muggers-with-badges highway robbery of citizens to support the collapsing infrastructure, raise the marginal tax rate back up to 90%.
mclaren
All the commenters here have completely missed the point. You don’t get it. The police slowdown isn’t designed to affect citizens, it’s an economic weapon designed to hit New York City hard in the pocketbook.
And it’s succeeding.
Without the sweet sweet cash from all those fines and fees, New York City will start to bleed red in its budgets very soon.
This means that the police have the upper hand. They are going to win this one. The city of New York will have to capitulate and give these muggers with badges anything they want because the alternative is to go broke and start shutting down garbage collection, road repair, K-12 schools…you name it.
That bodes ill because it means the police are now in the driver’s seat, economically speaking.
SWMBO
@mclaren: What if the city decides to cut staff? Starting with the police? If they want the contract negotiations for more pay, would they trade off 30% cut in staff? The city is still in a good position, especially if people don’t see any apocalyptic life style changes. The union may yet overplay their hand to the point that the good citizens (who voted de Blasio in) to say enough already.
Renie
@worn: Thank you for your positive comment. All I was stating was how expensive it is; glad to see you understood that.