Spitzer’s plans
Yesterday we gave you a brief summary of Governor Spitzer’s State of the State address (SOS). Today we’d like to highlight some of the initiatives Spitzer outlined in his address.
In a deft political move, Spitzer sought to mend fences by naming his former primary opponent, Tom Suozzi, to head a commission tasked with studying a potential property tax cap. While I don’t think a property tax cap is a fiscally wise idea (at least without more specifics on how it would be implemented), I do think Spitzer will be well served by appointing Suozzi to this commission, especially given all the political fighting over the past year.
Spitzer also announced a $1 billion upstate development fund, which will help boost the upstate economy. Another great tool to boost the upstate economy is Spitzer’s proposed net metering legislation, which will allow small businesses and homeowners who generate their own power through solar or wind to sell more excess power back into the grid.
State parks will get $100 million more under Spitzer’s plan.
To address a growing lack of doctors in rural areas, Spitzer announced a new program called Doctors Across New York, which will offer grants to pay off medical school if the doctor agrees to work in an area lacking adequate medical care.
Finally, Spitzer proposed the establishment of a $4 billion Higher Education Endowment. Spitzer proposed allowing a private company to take a stake in the state lotto, which would be a one-shot revenue item. Some republicans are critical of this, but I don’t think using one-shots in this manner is bad. That’s because money derived from partially privatizing the lotto would be used to set up an interest earning endowment, making it a permanent revenue generator. That is totally different than using a one-shot to plug annual expenditures, because the annual expenditures will be back the following year, but the one-shot revenue will keep money coming in year after year.
There’s a great deal of promise on the horizon, but we all need to work together to ensure the Governor has the support needed to implement his worthy plans.
Regarding $4 billion Higher Education Endowment, nowhere in the link you provide does it say anything about “allowing a private company to take a stake in the state lottoâ€ÂÂ.
Regardless, I believe that using the lottery as a way to raise funds for Education is a terribly inefficient method of raising money for this crucial aspect of our society.
Can you elaborate on how it’s inefficient and what you think would be a better method? (I’m not disagreeing just curious.)
First of all, it is inefficient because you never know how much money you are going to get  you could have a major shortfall, for example, if gas prices go up, people may stop buying lottery tickets. Secondly, there is a bureaucracy associated with running the lottery that costs actual $$$ (and some of these dollars go to advertising firms to dream up those god-awful NY State Lottery commercials and then actually pay for those commericals to be broadcast).
Next, the lottery essentially is a voluntary tax on people who like to gamble on lottery tickets (and although personally I like it when I don’t get taxed), I think education is something important enough that every tax payer in our society ought to contribute to, in a progressive tax structure. Just as every tax payer contributes to every other tax-funded service in a progressive tax structure. (Side point: Every study done indicates that it is the poorest in our society that buy most of the lottery tickets, making this a regressive tax, and furthermore, the habitual gambling on lottery tickets contributes to the lack of health of our society  gambling, IMHO, is not good for society).
Now imagine if we could eliminate that lottery bureaucracy by eliminating the lottery and obtaining the funds from taxation. The existing tax bureaucracy would handle the funds (as it handles all tax funds now), there are no more payments to Lottery bureaucracy, no more payments to lottery advertisement or ad agencies, and as a result, more money would be available for education.
Now, having said all that, I realize that I have adopted a position that very few people will agree with — let’s raise taxes a little and get rid of the lottery, but I honestly believe we will all be better off if this was how NY State operated.
Viper,
Thanks for this summary. I’m glad Spitz upgraded the net-metering thang. I can’t believe it didn’t include businesses before. Allowing biz to sell back power they generate is win-win-win: it helps biz keep costs down, helps spur local renewable businesses, helps use less resources, and helps the environment. What a freaking no-brainer.
I also clarified your sentence about the diff between one-shots and the lottery plan, to make the difference clearer. Feel free to change back if I missed your point.