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June 17, 2021 Op-Ed By John J. Ciafone
You don’t have to have an Economics Degree to understand the common sense principle that you can’t spend more money than you have.
Little children learn this first hand, by saving as much as they can for the future. Children also know that you can’t spend more than what you have.
Yet, year after year, our city council and mayor are in a race to outspend the prior fiscal years—even though there is no guarantee that the money will ever be there.
The most recent budget proposed by the mayor—well over $98 billion—fails to take into account the money sent from the federal government due to COVID, without which the city and state would be reeling in bankruptcy.
Instead of proposing a lean and responsible budget, they are reckless and careless in driving the city into further debt and off the cliff.
Our city council wants to defund the police, hurting the very same communities that rely on safety in the streets, in the parks, in the schools and on the subways. All the while, increasing the entire city budget and increasing funding for other city agencies.
They are hell bent in destroying our city.
John Ciafone, candidate for the 22nd Council District (Photo: Queens Post)
The city’s out of control taxation, fines and fees is causing a demographic population shift away from New York City to states like Florida and Texas. In fact, Florida has double our state population and operates with half of our state budget. People who move to Florida can reduce their income taxes by up to one-third.
There is a radical justice equity ideology among our electeds (to tax the heck out of the rich and the big corporations) failing to understand that they can easily use their feet to leave us and cause ever decreasing revenue collections as a result of their departure.
We saw this in Long Island City when Amazon was chased out by our elected officials; devastating collateral businesses and causing tremendous job loss and opportunities.
Long are the days of Democrats like John F. Kennedy, who believed that the rising tides would raise all of the ships. Supporting businesses and companies meant creating good paying jobs and opportunities for other businesses. Yet, today’s Democrats believe that the rich are evil and that corporations are demonic and that we must take from Peter to give to Paul.
More pernicious is the real truth. The budget gets bigger and bigger on the backs of the working class to feed the ugly parasites.
The special interests, contract bidders and lobbyists are the parasites that feed on the ever increasing public debt. They are like Christmas ornaments attached to the tree and our elected officials, who pander to these special interests, unions, contract bidders and lobbyists for increasing donations and endorsements.
That is why we can all learn from our children who can successfully manage a lemonade stand while our electeds run us into the ground.
John J Ciafone is a candidate for NYC Council District 22 (Astoria). He is running as a Democrat in the June 22 primary.
2 Comments
What a breath of fresh air. Overtaxation, burgeoning crime, the assault of excellence in our public education system, and the overall laissez-faire attitude hurts all New Yorkers whatever their race or socio-economic status. It’s time to put the interests of the productive and law abiding FIRST. Our voices need to be heard!!!
If the unfettered presence of corporations in NYC did anything to benefit working-class NYers, surely we’d have seen some evidence of it from the 1970s when the management of the city’s finances was handed over to its corporate creditors. Instead, we have decades and decades of empirical evidence to prove that trickle-down economics only benefits the already-wealthy, that corporate domination of our city has raised rents and led to the privatization of necessary services and an overall unraveling of the social safety net. Ciafone’s polemic is flatly contradicted by our city’s history and must be rejected for good.