Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:42:11 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Nicole Gelinas :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Nicole+Gelinas istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ferrer-tax-2007-07-17/58519/ Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EST New York's 2005 Democratic mayoral nominee, Freddy Ferrer, may be politically dormant, but his economy-killing tax philosophy lives on — in Washington, thanks to Senator Clinton and Rep. Charles Rangel. The former Bronx borough president ran for mayor on a platform of restoring the "transfer" tax on the New York Stock Exchange and other local securities market trades. New York had wisely repealed this tax back in 1981, but Mr. Ferrer argued that restoring it would generate $1.25 billion for the... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/clintons-child-care-flunks/55229/ Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 EST On Monday, Senator Clinton unveiled one of the first big domestic proposals of the 2008 campaign: a $10 billion, federally funded "universal prekindergarten" scheme. It fits right in with what is clearly a plan by the powerful national teachers' unions to capture the massive public money becoming available to serve the under-five year olds set. Just as bad, it implicitly assumes that government money can do far more than it can to improve people's lives. Under Mrs. Clinton's plan, the federal... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/what-the-middle-class-needs/51918/ Thu, 5 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EST A report out this week on "Saving Our Middle Class" doesn't present any real news on how hard it is for regular New Yorkers to raise families here. Rather, it's a bleak reminder that the city's leadership elite continues to embrace the kind of stale big-government ideas that hurt the middle class instead of helping it. The Drum Major Institute unveiled its findings on Monday at a conference attended by several future mayoral candidates, including Brooklyn Congressman Anthony Weiner, Bronx... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/bit-of-everything-wrong/45370/ Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST Tomorrow, the state's Public Authorities Control Board will vote on public financing for the $4 billion Atlantic Yards basketball stadium and housing project. Governor Pataki wants the project approved as part of his legacy, but he should be careful what he wishes for, because Atlantic Yards stands for much that is wrong with New York. For starters, New York won't trust the free market. Sure, a private-sector developer, Forest City Ratner, conceived the plan to erect the stadium and an instant... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/joining-the-competition/44797/ Thu, 7 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST Monday's announcement that two storied institutions, Bank of New York and Pittsburgh's Mellon Financial, will merge to create one firm with $17 trillion in assets is an apt illustration of how changes in the financial services industry affect Gotham's economy — and of how Gotham must work to make sure that industry keeps its global headquarters here. First, some background: Bank of New York, established in 1784, is America's oldest bank, founded by Alexander Hamilton, who became the nation's... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/will-spitzer-or-silver-run-albany/43133/ Wed, 8 Nov 2006 00:00:00 EST As this newspaper went to bed, it looked like Eliot Spitzer was winning the race for governor. If so, Mr. Spitzer won on a platform to reform Albany in the same way he says he reformed Wall Street, by attacking "a system that lacks accountability." One person, above all, has represented that lack of accountability for over a decade: the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver. In the weeks ahead, Mr. Spitzer's success or failure in neutralizing Mr. Silver's future influence will give New... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/constructing-better-property-taxes/42083/ Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:00:00 EST To spur affordable housing, Mayor Bloomberg wants to reform the city's tax break for new residential buildings. But the mayor's proposed fixes would only further distort New York's already distorted property market, without lowering housing costs for average New Yorkers. The mayor would do better to push the state Legislature and the City Council to scrap the convoluted tax break altogether. The savings could then be used to cut taxes across the board on owners of apartment buildings, condos... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/room-for-tax-cuts/36798/ Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST NewYork ended the last fiscal year June 30 with $3.8 billion more than it had expected to spend. But this record surplus isn't because Mayor Bloomberg has been frugal with the taxpayers' money. During his administration, city-funded spending is up about 40%, to about $40.5 billion annually, including a projected 6.7 increase for the new fiscal year. Instead, the wild surplus is a symptom of New York's dysfunctional tax structure — and Mayor Bloomberg would do his city much good if he were to... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/after-nixzmary-brown/26247/ Fri, 20 Jan 2006 00:00:00 EST Gotham's Administration for Children's Services will spend nearly $2.2 billion this year. The agency, with nearly 7,000 employees, is run by an experienced professional who reputedly is tops in his field. So nobody can say that New York City isn't generous when it comes to protecting at-risk children. But ACS and all of its financial and human resources didn't save 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown, tortured and beaten to death last week, allegedly by her mother's husband, as her mother ignored her... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/get-the-buses-running/24872/ Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, critics rightly focused on a compelling image of the city's leadership breakdown: hundreds of idle yellow school buses, underwater and useless. Today, New York City has its own idle buses - more than 4,000 of them, rendered equally useless by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki as the economy struggles to stay afloat with each day of a transit strike. It's time for New York's leaders to show some practical leadership during our own economic disaster and... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/privatize-the-buses/24723/ Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST Early yesterday morning, the 707 union members who work at Jamaica Buses Incorporated and at the Triboro Coach Corporation went out on strike, inconveniencing 57,000 New Yorkers and paving the way for a general New York City transit strike set to start at midnight last night. The limited bus strike is just a small taste of the chaos New York faces this week if the Transport Workers Union has gone out en masse as promised. The TWU's reasoning behind the early-bird bus strike was this: Jamaica... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/put-teeth-in-taylor/24534/ Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST New York has been on edge for weeks, worried that the Transport Workers Union will call a strike when its contract is up tonight and cripple the city's subways and buses during a possible snowstorm at the height of the holiday season. Yet everybody knows that the state's Taylor Law forbids public employees from walking out on the job. The law docks workers two days' pay for each day of unauthorized absence, and levies hefty penalties on the union itself. Isn't that enough to deter any strike?... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/will-new-orleans-recover/19482/ Thu, 1 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST It would be uplifting to write today of how the brave people of New Orleans will come together and help each other after Hurricane Katrina - and of course many are doing just that. Volunteers are navigating their boats around downed power lines and burbling gas mains to rescue fellow citizens still hanging onto rooftops in the water. Even as floodwaters still engulf the city, evacuees seek to return and rebuild their storied city - though they may not be able to do so for months. But to... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/bulldozing-small-business/19301/ Mon, 29 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST All four Democratic candidates for mayor claim to favor small businesses and economic growth. But who really does? Here's what they say. Former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer pledges to revamp "unfair and unnecessary" regulations on small businesses. The Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields, pledges to set aside more city contracts for small businesses and to provide such companies with access to capital. City Council speaker Gifford Miller pledges to slash taxes for New... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/spike-the-tax-hike/18223/ Mon, 8 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST New Yorkers are used to paying higher taxes under Mayor Bloomberg. During his first year in office, he (and the City Council) hiked property taxes. He followed up that hike months later with "temporary" hikes in the city's income-tax and sales tax rates. Unless the mayor acts fast to stem unsustainable growth in city spending, taxpayers may soon learn how long "temporary" can be. Mr. Bloomberg recently allowed the sales tax hike, and a tax on clothing, to expire on time as promised. But the... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/through-a-tunnel-darkly/17273/ Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST It took Governor Pataki nearly four years to figure out that his appointees had screwed up reconstruction at ground zero. This year, Mr. Pataki finally named his chief of staff, John Cahill, to supervise reconstruction of the site personally. But at ground zero, the actual damage had been done long before, on September 11, 2001. That's not the case at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state entity that runs Gotham's terror-target subways. Must it take a catastrophic attack for Mr... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/olympian-triumph/16913/ Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST New Yorkers shouldn't be sad about losing the 2012 Summer Olympics to London last week. America's dynamic private-sector economy - even in an overtaxed place like New York - is at a natural disadvantage to incubate a successful Olympic bid, by comparison with the economies of the four European cities that competed with Gotham for the Games. And that's a good thing. To bid for the Olympics entails a long orgy of promised government spending. The five bidding cities for the 2012 Games - London... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/imminent-domain/16551/ Wed, 6 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Not yet. It's not too late for state politicians to stop themselves from stealing New Yorkers' property. The Supreme Court's new definition of "public use" under the U.S. Constitution's eminent-domain clause could spur Gotham's spendthrift politicians to seize vast swaths of private property, just to generate more tax dollars to feed the city's bloated $50 billion budget - unless state lawmakers act. Two weeks ago, the court ruled against families in New London, Conn., who sought to protect... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/time-for-merit-pay-for-teachers/15717/ Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST Student test scores rose in New York City this year - and in some classrooms and schools, kids made truly significant gains. Consider Region 5, a poor district of eastern Brooklyn and Queens. As Julia Levy reported in The New York Sun, the district was an "educational wasteland for decades," with two-thirds of the schoolchildren failing at everything. But this year, the district's elementary- and middle-school students pulled off testing gains of 17 percentage points in English and 10... NICOLE GELINAS http://www.nysun.com/opinion/west-side-profits/14926/ Mon, 6 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is rethinking the economic merits of the proposed stadium for the West Side of Manhattan. "If it's a good business deal," he said Wednesday, "it's a good business deal for the private sector." Mr. Bruno is at least half right. A board controlled by Mr. Bruno, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Governor Pataki should vote soon on a $300 million state subsidy to the stadium, to add to the $300 million that city taxpayers will pay for the project...