Five reasons we’re counting down the days (all 77 of them) ‘til Election Day (aka Judgment Day) …
5). While New York families have been making cuts to their household budgets and getting by with less, Albany lawmakers ok’d a budget that spends a whopping $136 billion of taxpayers’ money. That’s an increase of $5.4 billion over last year.

4). Albany electeds signed off on a plan to renege on the contracts the state entered into with private sector employers, even though those employers held up their end of the bargain by hiring people, rehabbing property or adding green technology to their plant. Now many businesses will only receive a portion of the tax credits they have budgeted for 2010, 2011 and 2012.

3). How do Albany electeds treat their economically struggling constituents? They throw $1.2 billion in new taxes at them.

2). How do Albany electeds treat economically struggling small businesses in their districts? They approve measures that increase their healthcare costs.

1). 76 percent of New Yorkers favor a statewide property tax cap. Yet, measures to adopt one lay dormant in the state Assembly.

Please mark November 2 “Judgment Day” on your calendar, get your friends, co-workers, family and neighbors to vote (and register via your local board of elections if they haven’t already!) and stay tuned in to UnshackleUpstate.com

If you’re really fired up, please consider a donation to the UPAC!

A proposal to defer 50 percent of business tax incentives for three years remains under active discussion by the Governor and legislative leaders this week. Simply stated, this would amount to little more than the government borrowing from NY businesses (you!) to pay for excessive spending that lawmakers are unwilling to trim.

If you currently benefit from any of the following programs, 50% of your incentives will be deferred for three years if this measure is approved:

• Empire Zone
• Investment Tax Credits
• Brownfield Tax Credits
• Historic Rehab Tax Credits
• CAPCO incentives
• Power for Jobs
• … and any other business tax incentives

New York State made commitments to you to provide incentives that it is now proposing to take away. You’ve relied on these incentives to make investment decisions and have factored those incentives into financial plans. It is irresponsible of our representatives to carry this through at your expense – without even mentioning the message New York will send to the economic development world: that NY is closed for business.

It is imperative that the Upstate business community raise its voice loudly and immediately! At the same time Albany wants to devastate Upstate’s economic development programs, they plan to increase incentives for the NYC film industry! Since Unshackle Upstate was created, it’s difficult to find a more obvious Upstate/Downstate division.

Typically, we would try to engage you in a VoterVoice e-mail campaign, but the issue is before us right now. There’s no time to lose. Here are the legislators who need to hear from you TODAY:

NYS SENATE 

Honorable John L. Sampson
Phone: (518) 455-2788, Fax: (518) 426-6806
E-mail: sampson@senate.state.ny.us

Honorable William T. Stachowski
Phone: (518) 455-2426, Fax: (518) 426-6851
E-mail: stachows@senate.state.ny.us

Honorable David J. Valesky
Phone: (518) 455-2838, Fax: (518) 426-6885
E-mail: valesky@senate.state.ny.us

Honorable Darrel J. Aubertine
Phone: (518) 455-2761, Fax: n/a
E-mail: aubertin@senate.state.ny.us

Honorable Brian X. Foley
Phone: (518) 455-2303, Fax: (518) 426-6825
E-mail: bfoley@senate.state.ny.us

Honorable Carl Kruger
Phone: (518) 455-2460, Fax: (518) 426-6855
E-mail: kruger@senate.state.ny.us

NYS ASSEMBLY 

Honorable Sheldon Silver
Phone: (518) 455-3791, Fax: (518) 455-5459
E-mail: speaker@assembly.state.ny.us

Honorable Herman D. Farrell Jr.
Phone: (518) 455-5491, Fax: (518) 455-5776
E-mail: farrelh@assembly.state.ny.us

Honorable Robin L. Schimminger
Phone: (518) 455-4767, Fax: (518) 455-4724
E-mail: schimmr@assembly.state.ny.us

Honorable Joseph D. Morelle
Phone: (518) 455-5373, Fax: (518) 455-5647
E-mail: morellj@assembly.state.ny.us

When Unshackle Upstate launched in March 2006, Gannett News Service Bureau Chief, Jay Gallagher, covered our first trip to Albany.

He knew what we were up against.

Jay reported on Albany politics and government for a quarter century, and wrote a weekly column on state government since the late 1980s. He passed away Monday night, after a nearly year-long battle with pancreatic cancer.

His columns took issue with “the Albany process” – in which issues with a profound impact on the lives of New Yorkers are debated, voted upon, rejected or enacted into law via a system charged with partisan politics and esoteric internal rules and procedure. 

A month before our first Unshackle Upstate trip to Albany, Jay was a guest speaker at an event the Buffalo Niagara Partnership hosted in Buffalo. We brought him to town to discuss his book, The Politics of Decline: A Chronicle of New York’s Descent and What You Can Do To Save Your State. It was the outgrowth of his volume of columns.

In his remarks, Jay seemed sincerely concerned that most citizens pay so little attention to what happens in their state capitol that decisions made there hurt them.

Even after decades of watching Albany in action, and knowing what Unshackle Upstate would face as it took on the capitol, he still gave us a fair shake – and somehow maintained some optimism, especially when discussing Unshackle Upstate’s chances with our younger staffers.

Jay’s columns helped average New Yorkers pay better attention to the capitol. And in many ways inspired our coalition.   We thank him for that.

Our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues.

Each and every spring we seem to do a lot of communicating with our members about how bad Albany is. Just a few years back, it was the Brennan Center’s report that New York State had the most dysfunctional government in the nation. Year-in and year-out around that time, late budgets became the norm, annually thrusting entities relying upon state funding into uncertainty. Last year, we filled our members’ e-mailboxes with piece after piece about a state budget that – during a recession – raised spending by over $10 billion and taxes by over $8 billion.

This year, we maintain the status quo…

We have a budget that is nearly a month late – with no end in sight, a Senate Majority that insists on borrowing $2 billion to send out STAR rebate checks right before Election Day – the same rebate checks they ABOLISHED last budget, an Assembly Speaker whose own conference members call an obstructionist and a lame-duck Governor who says the whole situation is hopeless and his successor is doomed.

So what can we do to ensure Governor Paterson is not in fact the next Nostradamus? Sadly, many New Yorkers have already “voted with their feet” and left for greener pastures. We’re taking a different approach – standing up to the life-long politicians, the special interests, the downstate leaders who have provided little more than lip-service to Upstate. That’s why we’ve partnered with Unshackle Upstate and other business organizations in Upstate and Long Island to “Remember in November,” encouraging voters to use their votes on Judgment Day (Election Day, November 2) to initiate that change.

The first step on Election Day is to bring back an Upstate-friendly majority to the State Senate. This goal serves two purposes – balancing the power between the downstate-controlled Assembly and protecting our interests during the re-districting process scheduled for 2012. With 110 Assembly seats located below the Tappan Zee Bridge, it is inevitable that the Assembly will always be controlled by New York City. An Upstate-controlled Senate can help combat that control, protecting our Upstate interests in Albany. 

The second purpose serves a much more ominous concern- New York is projected to lose at least one and probably two Congressional Districts after the 2010 Census (because people ARE voting with their feet).  If there is not an Upstate-friendly majority in the Senate during the re-districting process, Upstate stands to have its voice in Washington, DC weakened, on top of its current lack of representation in Albany!  Don’t think for a second that downstate interests won’t hesitate to “protect their own” and chop up two Upstate Congressional Seats instead of a more appropriate 1-for-1 agreement.  To protect Upstate’s voice in Albany AND Washington, to be able to stand up to the Assembly Speaker’s obstructionist ways, to stop wasteful spending and harmful borrowing, and to make sure Governor Paterson’s prediction that our next Governor is “doomed to fail” is incorrect, it is imperative Upstate take back the Senate majority.

Given the inefficiency we’re seeing from Albany, perhaps a different approach would be more productive!

I’m writing this in Buffalo, some 280 miles west of Albany.  Put another way, I’m writing from the real world, which is REALLY far from New York’s capital city.

Can it possibly be true that an announcement was made over the weekend that state employees would be getting $1/2 billion in raises – when we have a budget deficit that is estimated to be $20 billion next year?

As the president and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership – an organization that represents some 2,500 Western New York companies – I’ve watched private sector employers struggle with cutting or freezing employee salaries, discontinuing 401k matching programs, instituting furloughs or all of the above. They did this in order to save jobs at their companies – and trust me, these decisions weren’t made easily and their impacts on their employees’ families weren’t taken lightly.

That’s why it is infuriating that lawmakers in Albany continue to make decisions that further cut the take home pay of hardworking taxpayers across New York. The nearly 250,000 people Partnership member companies employ are paying for those proposed $1/2 billion in raises — while they are living on less!

A 2009 report from Unshackle Upstate titled “New York’s Double Standard,” showed that annual salaries for upstate public sector employees averaged $47,035. The private sector average was $42,789.  New York leads the nation in per capita contributions to public-employee retirement, at $486 per taxpayer for the 2006-07 fiscal year.

It’s time Albany lawmakers get in touch with reality. If they don’t, it’s critical all you “real world voters” Remember in November.

Last week, the Unshackle Upstate coalition released our “Judgment Day” initiative statewide, outlining our government advocacy and political action for the remainder of the 2010 election season. It’s no secret to anyone in New York State – and particularly Upstate – that 2010 is a critical year for our future. Escalating budget deficits, post-census redistricting and questionable (if not pervasive) economic development policy have made Election Day, November 2, absolutely pivotal – with implications projected for decades to come.

For far too long, elected representatives have been returned to office again and again under an “I hate federal/state/local government, but I love my representative.” It’s not difficult to understand why Albany continues to turn a deaf ear at Unshackle Upstate’s call to end member item – or “pork” – spending. An elected representative can cover up an awful lot of bad policy votes with “big check” presentations to local community organizations.

But for every community organization that is helped by pork funding, the electeds have shown they are proficient at taking money directly out of OUR pockets. Last year’s tax increases (disguised in a number of ways – “fees,” “assessments,” etc.) cost every household in New York State $1,300. The same people who we’re praising on the front page of the local paper for their “pass-through” gifts to the community are paying for it with our cash. Wouldn’t we all prefer to spend our hard-earned money the way we, ourselves, see fit?

That’s why vigilance is a critical element of making change politically – and that’s where the Unshackle Upstate Judgment Day “report cards” come into play. We like to think of it as a reckoning: (1) this is how the Upstate business community needs our elected officials to behave; (2) here’s HOW they’ve behaved; and then, most importantly, (3) here’s what we should do about it. Translating the actions of our elected officials into Election Day (November 2) political action is what this effort is all about. Plainly and simply, that means getting to the polls to vote against those “representatives” that aren’t adequately representing.

You can expect to see a lot of good “constituent service” from Albany electeds this year – including those political capital-earning pork checks. When the political consultants get hold of the PR effort, it’s going to be hard to ignore. Please don’t be fooled. Last year was a devastating year for business and personal taxpayers in Upstate New York, and it’s important that we remember the damage that was done. We cannot allow ourselves to be “bought” by a check to the local little league, or some help getting a pot hole filled at the end of our street – they’re just not worth the bad decisions that are being made in Albany. I urge voters in Upstate to utilize Unshackle Upstate’s Judgment Day report cards – not just for information, but as a frequently-visited guide for Election Day decision-making.

Take a look through the Unshackle Upstate web site and we’ve got our reaction to and recommendations for the New York State budget pretty well covered. For us, New York’s road to recovery is pretty simple: reduce spending and reduce (and certainly no new) taxes, fees, assessments that make doing business in this state expensive. There are a number of clickable options on this web page that will help you not only learn Unshackle Upstate’s position, but also get involved in advocating for them.

Another piece of our platform is no new regulations on employers looking to invest and create jobs in New York State. At the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, we refer to this part of our daily (and believe me, it’s a daily effort) advocacy as “playing defense.” Albany special interests are incessantly trying to further regulate what is already a highly regulatory business climate in New York State, and the impact of that atmosphere is felt particularly seriously in Upstate.

Currently, for example, currently there is a push by special interests to include previously rejected legislation in the state budget that would impose costly wage mandates on any employers utilizing the services of an industrial development agency (IDA) in New York State. IDAs are a worthwhile economic development program that help to mitigate the high-tax, high-cost of doing business atmosphere in New York. Typically, an IDA incentive can save a new or expansion project 10-15% of construction costs – which could be the deciding factor between a company bringing jobs to New York or taking them elsewhere. Wage mandates that special interests are pushing would add 28% back onto the cost of the project. There are a lot of employers represented in Unshackle Upstate (over 40,000!) and I’ve yet to meet one who would pay 28% extra to save 10-15%. That’s why we refer to the proposed IDA legislation as a “job-killer.”

Another example: In the Buffalo Niagara region and across Upstate, agribusiness is a key industry sector. Yet, despite the fact that agribusiness is a multi-billion industry that supports hundreds of thousands of New York jobs, downstate special interests are pushing legislation that, among other things, would open the door for farmworker strikes – even in the middle of harvest. If you know the agribusiness industry, you know that there are precise times of year that the work must be done – unpredictable labor issues invoked by increased state regulation would have a detrimental effect on the industry.

These are just a couple examples – “playing defense” against proposed anti-business regulations is a full-time job in New York. The Buffalo Niagara Partnership and Unshackle Upstate stand committed to educating business and personal taxpayers on the repercussions of poorly-designed and politically-motivated legislation that will end up costing New Yorkers jobs.