Bloomberg News reports that the city’s corporate leaders and super-wealthy are offended by mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio’s plan to raise taxes on those earning over $500,000 a year to fund universal pre-K and after school programs for middle school kids.
The head of the business leaders’ group was astonished by de Blasio’s indifference to the needs of corporate executives. ““It shows lack of sensitivity to the city’s biggest revenue providers and job creators,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a network of 200 chief executive officers, including co-Chairman Laurence Fink of BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the world’s biggest money manager.”
Some predicted an exodus of rich people from the city.
What has de Blasio proposed?
“De Blasio’s plan would raise the marginal tax rate on incomes above $500,000 to 4.4 percent from almost 3.9 percent. For the 27,300 city taxpayers earning $500,000 to $1 million, the average increase would be $973 a year, according to the Independent Budget Office, a municipal agency.
“For those making $1 million to $5 million, the average extra bite would rise to $7,793, the budget office said. At incomes of $5 million to $10 million, it would climb to $33,518, and for those earning more than $10 million, it would mean paying $182,893 more.”
Here is the reaction of one hedge fund manager: “E.E. “Buzzy” Geduld, who runs the hedge fund Cougar Capital LLC in the city and is a trustee of Manhattan’s Dalton School, where annual tuition tops $40,000, said de Blasio’s plan “is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard” and “not a smart thing to do.”
Think of the billions that Bloomberg squandered on technology projects that fizzled (like the $600 million Citytime project), the failed merit pay plan ($53 million wasted), the failed plan to pay students to get higher test scores, etc.
The business executives said nothing because no one suggested that they would be taxed to pay for it.
De Blasio is proposing research-based programs. Those who care about education and kids should be cheering and should gladly pay an extra $973 (or more if their income is higher) to do what is right for kids.
Oh, and one more thing. The article says:
“The city’s richest 1 percent took home 39 percent of all earnings in 2012, up from 12 percent in 1980, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group in New York.”
Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
And, that extra NYC income tax paid by the very rich would be a deduction from income for federal tax purposes, so the after-federal-tax bite of the DeBlasio proposal would be even less than that outlined here.
A $1,000 for a person making a million and they cry? They pay that for a bottle of moderate wine. $40,000/year for one child and $1,000 for someones elses is way too much? Greed, greed and more greed. Also, I am you and you are you and you are trash and I am way too kool. That is their attitude. After all, don’t they deserve it all as it is their “Divine Right.”
How absurd an argument from the business community. It probably would not even make sense to a kindergartner.
George are you back on the pipe? Those in the top tax rate are paying 54% of their income in taxes. Years ago they had many deductions they don’t have now. So 54% is more like 70 or 80%.
There are also so many more taxes. Millionare tax when buying a home, healthcare insurance tax of 40% of higher value policies, and on and on and on and on. And of that 54% that you spend there is almost a 10% sales tax so you can only spend 49%. Oh and real estate taxes for a nice apt in the city? $50000 -$ 1000000. So the rich are really hit hard buy additional taxes. Also if they want to go to private school, $ 40,000 a year. SO bigger incomes in NY are not so big as other places. The cost of living is enormous as you move up.
I know they have it better but you are smarter than alot of people. How about we take 20% of your brain and send it to them.
Aw, those poor rich people…”enduring” the hardship of those nasty expenses that come with having a nice apartment while the rest of us schlubs have it so much easier settling for walk-up closet apartments where we can sleep, use the bathroom and cook breakfast without having to take two steps.
I feel just so terrible that the rich folk have to pay a larger share of “expenses” into society in order to bring in a larger share of income to their own households–especially those who make money by investing money and not actually by, you know, working. Paying for those long, hard hours their staff spends working feverishly over stock portfolios would tire anyone out. Good thing they have such nice apartments and other amenities to allow them to have the quality of life necessary to keep them “afloat” in this economy.
Whatever would they DO without the luxuries they HAVE to pay for? Why, those poor rich people should NEVER have to pay for the advantages they have. Just wouldn’t be fair. The rest of us ought carry them just like they deserve.
“Some predicted an exodus of rich people from the city.”
Woo hoo! I’ll bring the champagne!
Choice comments by Ms. Wylde:
““It shows lack of sensitivity to the city’s biggest revenue providers and job creators,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a network of 200 chief executive officers, including co-Chairman Laurence Fink of BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the world’s biggest money manager.”
(No, I think her reaction is insensitive. Many of us who invest have provided these fellows their riches.)
Some predicted an exodus of rich people from the city.
(Really not a problem. Perhaps workers and the middle-class can again afford to live there. Just curious where they might flee to.)
“job creators” is another phrase right up there with “failing schools” that I can’t buy into hook, line and sinker.
I am a school teacher and I pay a housekeeper and a nanny (of course with my husband’s help). I am a middle class job creator, am I not? And I pay much more than minimum wage. So I don’t buy the “job creator” bit.
And my middle class attorney husband has two employees, both of who receive full benefits (always have) and are paid well. He is also a job creator.
We are not wealthy and we have four employees who are all paid well. We are job creators.
both of whom (I was interrupted while typing)
and we pay a higher percentage in taxes than our friends who are hedge fund managers (we have several). we are revenue providers.
Joanna Best: enjoyed your comments.
Perhaps you are with me on this: remember time-honored American sayings like “those to whom much is given, much is expected” and “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”?
I surely can’t be the only one who thought “thin-skinned, thy name is”—well, the article references high-earners and chief executive officers and revenue providers and job creators. And the beat goes on…
“For greed all nature is too little.” [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Even those old dead Roman guys had a thing or two to say that is relevant to current affairs.
🙂
Very good comments Joanna…right on. Same in my son’s household.
But another factor is that these hugely wealthy ‘ostensible’ job creators have been shown repeatedly not to be creating small business jobs, and even large business jobs, but rather these are the folks who are keeping their gains in a holding pattern, invested, for which they pay only 15% in income tax while the rest of us modest level earners are paying over twice as much in taxation.
Also, do not forget the SS cutoff payments for FICA at $113,000 to protect the wealthy from having to contribute fairly, so that Bloomberg, Trump, and their ilk, pay virtually nothing of their multi millions of dollar yearly incomes into the SS pot. How many teachers ever earn 6 figure salaries? Yet the rest of taxpayers pay into FICA on our total incomes as long as we show earned income.
They get us coming and going. Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
Awesome retort Joanna. And I’m betting that the people you and your husband employee may contribute partially or fully to someone else being employed.
“(Really not a problem. Perhaps workers and the middle-class can again afford to live there. Just curious where they might flee to.)”
It would probably be a huge, huge problem.
“It would probably be a huge, huge problem.”
My flee comment was in regards to affluent New Yorkers, not the working or middle-class. New York City can certainly afford to lose a few million and billionaires.
Yes, Diane..”don’t cry” for the inner city children. The self-reinvented whore, Evita Peron, and her dictator husband, Juan, could certainly be the role models of greed and excess for these top money makers in NYC, and throughout the US.
An increase in their already lowest tax rates of all taxpayers, of only 1/2 a percent, is beyond their ken. They would rather see inner city children be homeless and in poverty than to spend a bit to give them a headstart in education, the only thing that can eventually lift them out of poverty.
On an adjunct topic on edicts from the top which affect the bottom in our socio economic structure…today Howard Blume has a long front page article in the LA Times explaining how Gov. Brown and his Supt of Schools, Tom Torlakson and our State Legislators are working to rapidly implement CC so that testing can quickly begin in grades 3 – 8 and 11.
However, the results will not be transparent…no educators, nor parents, nor students, nor taxpayers will know the results. They are using these students as guinea pigs, and their refusal to publish results even in gross figures rather than specific site results, shows their fear that they will be similar to NYC, failing.
This is on top of Blume’s other article earlier this week showing the additional stupidity in the purchase by Deasy/LAUSD of the overpriced, greater than retail, iPads. They forgot, we are told, to purchase keypads to go with the tablets (so that 8 year olds can learn to type fast enough not to fail the testing). The test is set up in ascending and descending progressions, so that slow typers register in this time-specific testing, and they are sent to lower forms of the test for slow learners….read that as, they are labeled as failures.
How can inner city kids who have no computers at home, and often no parents as their first teachers with a house full of books and enriching toys, ever compete with the children from homes and families of the upper class where they have every advantage?
Our democratic republic, hohoho, it rife with this attitude of these wealthy NIMBYs. “Let ’em eat cake”…
This great corporate scheme to only enrich the plutocrats, as in the Bloomberg Report today in NYC, serves to continue to redistribute our nation’s wealth from the poor to the hugely rich.
NYC…vote for De Blasio!
California, do not vote again for Brown!
Ellen, get down. And you are totally correct.
If the fools who are the wealthiest leave, so what. Many of those on Wall Street do not live in N.Y. anyway. They come in on the train from other states. What is the big deal if you make $500,000 to $1,000,000 to pay $1,000? In the rest of their lives $1,000 is nothing and does not matter as it is only for them. Maybe housing prices will drop and rents also. It is supposed to be supply and demand isn’t it? So a $5 million condo for $1.5 million. Good Deal. They are the smallest part of society, the one taking all the money and those who do not care. We have the vote. If we use it they cannot get away with their game. Just that simple. We knocked out the billionaires to have Zimmer and Ratliff. Who says it cannot be done elsewhere. Soon we will see who they are with two important issues: One-the illegal purchase of the I-Pads with the real cost of $1,592 for the first round each from the Feb. 12, 2013 powerpoint posted by one of Diane’s commenters which I then downloaded and analyzed. It is on page 10 not 9. Nine proves they are lying by comparing the stated costs with 10. When you extend out the numbers for the whole district it is over $1 billion. Then a yearly replacement cost of $150-200 million.
So the wealthiest want to have it both ways. They want to rip us off and not pay for a thing. Good way to double your assets rapidly only for them.
If nobody wants to take the other side of this debate, I’ll do it. To me, this proposal is another example of the “free lunch” mentality that’s almost universally held when it comes to tax policy. Raise anybody’s taxes but mine.
Step back and forget for the moment about how to pay for *new* services like universal pre-K. If NYC wants to maintain its current level of services, it needs new, permanent streams of revenue.
I’m not against the idea of increasing personal income taxes as a way to accomplish that. But a broader-based tax increase, one that targeted the middle class as well as the highest earners, would raise far more money and be much less volatile. NYC is already extremely reliant on the financial industry, and that’s one of if not the most volatile industries there is. The more you rely on the highest earners for the money to provide basic services, the more the city’s budget is tied to the annual swings in their fortunes. That’s not a great place to be.
NYC *already* has a budget that’s held together by shoestrings, gum, and whatever rabbit it can pull out of the hat each year for a one-time shot to make it to the next year. The city has already raided the retiree health funds, which now sit at *zero*. The city has already kicked its pension contributions 20 years down the road. Every year we have fewer teachers and cops and firehouses despite spending more and more money. Teachers have to spend money out of their own pockets to buy school supplies. Class sizes are going up, not down. So now the plan is to create a new budget line that will cost $500 million a year, relying on the most volatile revenue stream available? Even assuming Albany signs off on this tax plan — and that’s a huge, huge assumption — and NYC builds its own universal pre-K, what happens next year, when the income of today’s $12-million-per-year set falls to $10 million and wipes out the entire $500 million that was baked into the budget? Do we shut down the whole pre-K program? (“Sorry, folks!”) Of course not. Instead we’ll do what we’re already doing — take another x% off K-12 funding at the school-level, let class sizes rise a little bit more, let facilities continue to fall apart and swelter.
So in a nutshell, I find it difficult to get enthused about this.
Good food for thought, FLERP, but in regard to, ” NYC is already extremely reliant on the financial industry, and that’s one of if not the most volatile industries there is, ” I’ll make the same argument the privatizing reformers like to make in response to public education advocates who cry that fired teachers cannot always be replaced by someone else: Someone will always step up.
Someone will always be making insane amounts of money. So today’s “cash cow” (who may have lost his shirt in the financial business) can always be replaced by tomorrow’s (who may be the new owner of the previous one’s shirt). The people who make this money may change, but the money will still be made.
That said, I do agree that for the purpose of stability in tax revenue, the middle class should kick in a very small increase since there are more in the middle class (at least now), but increasing the load paid by the extreme “haves” by such a small percent is a drop in the bucket in terms of their individual losses. If I had 500 to 1,000 of something when others can operate on 65 and still live, I would not even miss ONE.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “someone will always step up.” My specific point about the financial industry was that (1) NYC is *hugely* reliant on it for its revenue and (2) it is a very volatile industry. Both of those facts are indisputable. The financial industry isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, but if it did, the effect would be epic and disastrous and not simply for NYC, but for the entire world. So to the extent you’re saying that some other industry will one day somehow replace the financial industry in a break-even scenario, I could not disagree more. If on the other hand you’re just saying that if some rich people become poor, others will become rich, I suppose that’s true in individual cases. I’m not sure it’s true in the aggregate, which is what matters for tax policy. But even if it were true in the aggregate, the volatility problem would remain. Generally, people who have “income” of, say, $15 million in any given year are not receiving that income as an annual salary. In NYC, that kind of money is bonus- or fee-driven, and so it’s difficult to predict from year to year. Can it be graphed over time? Maybe. (I truly don’t know how reliably that can be done given how rapidly the world is changing.) But even if it can, it presents massive difficulties for budgets that require more money each year. See, for example, NYC’s budgets from 2008 to the present. Other than the accounting tricks and one-time revenue shots, the only thing holding the city together has been the real estate industry. (Which is why it would be disastrous for almost everyone if NYC real estate crashed.)
“If on the other hand you’re just saying that if some rich people become poor, others will become rich, I suppose that’s true in individual cases. I’m not sure it’s true in the aggregate, which is what matters for tax policy. But even if it were true in the aggregate, the volatility problem would remain.”
Yes, this is exactly what I mean, and I agree with you: One cannot bank on (terrible pun, I know) a stable source of revenue from income that is based on market trends.
However, not every wealthy person’s income stems from the financial industry. For that matter, whose job is so stable that the tax system can rely upon it? It used to be that teachers had stable jobs, but slowly that is changing thanks to the policies brought forth by the reform movement.
Those in charge of corporate entities tend to forget that the gainfully employed play a huge role in keeping the economy running. The so-called “job creators” aren’t doing any favors by cutting jobs in the name of huge profits and bonuses for a very small percentage of company employees.
We’re all in this together. If society affords you the right and privilege to use laws to your financial advantage, you should pay more to protect and provide for said society than those who do not have advantages. You reap the benefits? You do your part.
I take your point, LG, and I’m happy enough to see anyone agreeing with me even in part. I’m focusing on financial industry income because this was a post about NYC. And I agree, job stability is increasingly scarce all around. But the big money banking crowd is extraordinarily unstable. Even the successful ones are always getting fired, and they often have no clue what their compensation for a given year is until December. That doesn’t mean you should pity them — I think they enjoy getting fired, it’s like a 6 month vacation with money to burn. But it’s a big factor in terms of predicting tax revenue.
FLERP, once again you and my husband are on the same page. I shared this post with him and he talked about getting rid of corporate tax for five minutes.
:). Must be the lawyer in you guys.
And also he carried on about all the people who pay no tax and I reminded him this is about children. I am glad I have a partner I can debate this stuff with; but I hold my ground that children never deserve to suffer because of their parents. I see a few each week who have been taken away from their mothers and are brain damaged from drugs. These children need their communities and it should not just be up to churches. And whatever society can do, they should do. Particularly if it is not a painful cost (which I don’t think these numbers are).
No lawyer wants to be likened to another lawyer, so I should say a couple things to clear my name.
First, talking about taxes is really difficult, both factually and theoretically. Anyone who claims to understand the tax code, or exactly how taxation affects incentives, is probably full of it. The factual part of the discussion (that is, how much do people pay) is made even harder given the overlap of federal, state, and local taxes. Plus people like to focus on federal taxes, partly for the sake of simplicity and partly because it suits their arguments. So yes, a lot of people don’t pay “taxes” if by “taxes” you just mean federal income taxes. But a lot of those same people pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, property taxes, state taxes, local taxes, or some combination of those.
Second, I don’t deny there’s a wealth disparity (and “wealth” is where the really important disparities are — “income” is a snapshot that isn’t remotely as important . . . except for the fact that the tax code doesn’t tax “wealth”), or that it’s been increasing dramatically, because that’s just a fact. And it’s also a fact that in the last 30 years, the wealthiest Americans have fared better on a relative tax basis than the the rest of America. But middle class Americans have also fared well in the last 30 years in terms of taxation, at least on the federal level. Middle class tax rates have fallen while (1) overall spending has risen sharply and (2) middle class entitlements have remained basically intact (so far). The wealthy have pushed their tax burden onto the middle class and into the future. The middle class, in turn, has just pushed its tax burden into the future.
The recent focus on the US’s structural deficit is now putting the entitlements under intense pressure because there is no political will to address the revenue side of the equation. For the Republicans, there can be no discussion of tax increases. For the Democrats, there can be discussion of only one kind of tax increase: a tax increase on the “rich” (which I always put in quotation marks because I live in NYC). Unfortunately there’s not much difference between those two positions, because the best way for the government to raise a lot of money is to increase the taxes paid by the broadest section of the tax base, the middle class.
So I don’t necessarily have a problem with taxing the rich, and I don’t think that 47% of Americans are getting a free ride because they don’t pay federal income taxes. My view is, if we are serious about fixing structural deficits without sacrificing things like entitlement or state/local services, then we should stop with the “millionaire’s taxes” and raise taxes across the board, and apply that revenue to the right things.
I get really annoyed by posts about all those good for nothing people that live on the public dole. Historically, the number of people who remain on public assistance generation to generation is small. There will always be a few who cannot function productively on their own, but there are many more working poor who pay payroll taxes but do not make enough to pay income taxes. Speaking for myself, I much prefer being paid enough to pay taxes. I find it obscene that people who bear great responsibility for the recent economic collapse are offended that society should expect more of them. Many of us have paid dearly for their irresponsibility. While those at the top of the economic pile have recouped any losses they may have suffered, the same cannot be said of their victims. I am tired of protecting the top tier at the expense of the majority. Their promises of benefits for all have NEVER materialized.
Although I don’t necessarily agree that universal pre-K is the way to spend any extra revenue when so much has been cut from city budgets in recent years.
FLERP I think he meant the poor who don’t pay taxes; not the wealthy.
Joanna — yes, I got that point from your comment.
Where could the wealthy people go? Well, I remember reading something last spring about a one way trip to Mars. The article told how to apply for this trip. Let them go there. Get Gates, Rhee, Jeb!, etc. to go with them! I hope that DeBlasio wins, that common sense reigns over the city once again and that the preschools get the funding.
They go to Westchester and Connecticut. They don’t even have to turn in their US passport.
Do you really believe someone earning $800,000 a year would move to avoid paying another $973 in taxes?
I don’t think there’s a serious risk that a tax hike like the one de Blasio’s proposing would cause substantial numbers of the wealthiest New Yorkers to flee the city, if that’s what you mean. My main concern with de Blasio’s proposal is that it would bake $500 million of additional costs into the city’s budget based on the most volatile revenue source at a time when the city is already unable to maintain its public services. Also, I confess that I am a selfish person, and I’m sick to death of seeing cuts to the city services that I use, especially the schools.
As for your specific question — would the prospect of paying $973 more in taxes cause someone earning $800,000 a year to move — I’d say probably not, although it certainly wouldn’t make them less likely to move. Would someone earning a few million a year move to avoid paying $30,000 more in taxes? It’s possible. Would someone who made $10 million consider moving to avoid paying $200,000 more in taxes? It’s possible. There’s universal agreement among economists that there is some relation between tax policy and behavior, although there are big disagreements about the precise nature of that relationship. I have nothing intelligent to offer to that debate.
FLERP,
Someone earning 10 million dollars a year who moves to avoid $30,000 more a year in taxes is a sick, evil, immoral, and selfish person, and it is EXACTLY that kind of mentality that is the problem, not the solution. That extent of disconnect is what got Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette and their children (and every relative and sycofant the regime could find) beheaded.
The French had the right idea . . . . .
Maybe so. But you’re not going to behead your way to universal pre-K.
Diane Ravitch,
Someone earning $800,000 a year should be facing a $3,000 a year tax hike, not $973 . . . . . Are we serious about education, about social infrastructure? If so, the funding for it needs to be materialized and equitable.
Or they can go live with Gerard Depardieu in Moscow . . . .
And Snowden!!! No hero is my book when you claim you are protecting civil liberties and then go to 2 countries that actually do spy on their citizens and reveal our secrets to them.
Russia actually makes it illegal to be Gay!!
Schoolgal,
I agree, but were there many options for Snowden?
I don’t think his efforts were to expose other countries for their oppression toward their own citizenry. But what he did, perhaps inadvertently, was show how the USA is just as has become as oppressive as other countries and that the hypocrisy now shown to the world will permanently change the way other sovereignties see America.
This sobering lens is long overdue, and for that, I am very grateful to Mr. Snowden.
Yes, getting that info out was important, but I think we already knew that. But don’t go crawling to China and Russia because those are countries that don’t believe in any civil liberties. I think he should have faced the consequences. So no, I have no respect for him whatsoever and do believe he is telling all.
I dropped my Goggle account because there is no privacy there either. And now FB is changing their privacy rules again…..
When you look at the Cost of Living Index L.A. is 193 and N.Y. is 204. Not much difference. Now LAUSD receives about $11,600/student and N.Y. City Schools receive $23.9 billion for 1.1 million students for a revenue of $21,727/student. We just learned that in N.Y. City they spend over $160,000/prisoner to jail them/year. California about $35,000/year for normal up to about $80,000 and youth $65-75,000/year. Why are you so expensive? Just looked up teachers salaries in N.Y. City Schools and they are about the same as in L.A. You should have 36,666 teachers in the classroom with 30 students/classroom. According to the N.Y. investigation of losing teachers there are 80,000 teachers in N.Y. City Schools. That leaves 43,334 not in the classroom. Where are they? You do not need a teacher for every teacher in the classroom for a start. What are you paying for goods and services? Does anyone check line items and how the money is spent? It does not add up in L.A. with the same teachers salaries and here employee wages and benefits are 80-85% of the budget. 80,000 teachers X $120,000/year, wages and benefits, + $9.6 billion. The budget is $23.9 billion according to the Deloitte and Touche audit I sent to parents in N.Y. who were told the budget was $3.6 billion and did not know the difference. Comparative analysis is where it is at.
It still comes back to what are they doing with that massive revenue. It is not going to salaries and benefits. Where is it going? $23.9 billion/year. Very tempting.
Teachers, principals, assistant principals, guidance counselors, assistant teachers, secretaries, parent coordinators, bus contracts, custodians, electricity, food and food services, SMART BOARDS, special education services, payments to Apple for iPads and iBooks and iMacs, professional development, Common Core stuff, pension contributions, retiree healthcare, interest on debt, and more!
If the state of New York would just end their contract with Pearson the city could save a lot of money. Those useless, error riddled disasters are a HUGE waste of taxpayer money. In addition, there are tons of wasteful things that Bloomberg spends money on. Maybe all that wasted money could go to prek funding instead. All the talk about new standards, failing schools, holding teachers accountable, national security being at risk because our children are not career and college ready. If all the non educator hedge funders and reformy tycoons are so concerned about the education of public school children, I would think it would be in their best interest to want to help all kids have access to pre-k. Then again..we all know they really don’t give a S!@t about anyone but themselves.
Then how is it when we had the high tax rates we had less income variances, more middle class with good jobs and their wives did not have to work. My parents had 11 children, large house, pool, horse, cabin, skiing, private schools and he was an engineer at Lockheed. That job pays about $130,000 now. To live that way now you need $4-500,000/year. This is how bad it has gotten. So let them cry. They robbed the whole world blind with two democratic presidents and congress’s helping them to ruin us. What does that say about us the voters? One of my uncles was one of the first in Gulf and Western one of the first big conglomerates. He did real well with those high taxes by the way.
These people will not give up their penthouse apartments. Maybe they will have to give up one designer pair of shoes for the year. They were so spoiled under Bloomberg and Quinn. Cry me a river. How many people did they lay off in order to increase their profits??
I love the desperation in the ads now airing for Thompson and the UFT. His daughter is an ex school teacher. Have no idea what she is doing now. Sorry honey, but you are no Dante. He’s a cutie.
$1000 a year more…give me a break! That’s a new outfit, or a weekend away, for that crowd. What have the other 98% had to give up just to get by? Even $30,000 if you are earning that much more…maybe a few days in Europe they have to give up…a ski trip…! Boohoo!
Snowden did what he had to do and that is “Get out of town before being killed.” After watching Manning and others what would you do brave teachers. I know. As usual “Run.” He is a hero to show us how crooked we are. Only a fool would stay around to get hung like Manning. Naked, light on 24 hours a day, isolation. How do you think you would do? Would you become a woman like Chelsea? Probably even worse than that after that long with constant psychological warfare by the best on you. Now Snowden, after watching what happened to Manning and Wikileaks, decided to stay free and able to control the message. In prison, under their total control, this is not possible.
We need this information, and being in Russia is the best way for us to get it with what is going on in Syria which is directly related to the Manning and Snowden and other revelations lately on the crookedness of the U.S. Read the Tunesia Wikileaks from before the revolution. We are now and have been for awhile a fascist country and that has to stop.
The real question is what is DeBlasio planning to do about high stakes standardized testing. I have read that he is planning to require only the minimum number of tests, but if the tests are still linked to consequences for students, schools and teachers, it will not matter anyway. The school where I teach plans to spend even more time on testing this year. FOUR WEEKS of simulations throughout the school year before the actual tests. I want a mayor who will put a stop to that!
I think de Blasio answered that question. But look at what we do know….Quinn backs charters and she’s “unapologetic” (her words) about it. Thompson’s campaign manager is Tisch–nuff said!!
It was a boon in the cap of the rich when PR came up with these words “It shows lack of sensitivity to the city’s biggest revenue providers and job creators”. Give me a break, how lame is this.