Point of the day
What’s happening on Coney Island
Some great political figures were at the Brooklyn Cyclones Coney Island Stadium on Wednesday night, including former MP Pete King, donor and food magnate John Catsimatidis, GOP mayor hopefuls Curtis Sliwa, former mayor and formerly fully licensed New Yorker – Attorney Rudy Giuliani – and the Democratic Councilor Robert Cornegy.
Catsimatidis ‘WABC radio was the presenting sponsor for Wednesday’s game, a 3-2 loss for the Mets’ high-A daughter. He rented luxury boxes and hosted some of the politicians, according to Cyclones spokesman Billy Harner. The occasion seemed to be that Catsimatidis was promoting a theme song for Coney Island to help the region return to normal. Catsimatidis is also a real estate player in the area, which ranges from deep blue to deep red.
Cornegy, a former college basketball player who had just run an unsuccessful candidacy for president of Brooklyn Borough, was “NOT there to see Giuliani, Sliwa or King,” said spokesman Raul Rothblatt, adding that the Brooklyn event was happening should support economic recovery through sport. “He was surprised to see her there and someone took a picture before he could walk away from the camera.”
One of the quick snapper was Jessica Parks from Brooklyn Paper, who posted pictures of mostly GOP movers and shakers on Twitter. Some in the Twitterati were surprised that King of Seaford was making the trek to Brooklyn.
He, Sliwa, and Giuliani are WABC regulars, but King explained his visit in an email Wednesday night to The Point: “As a guy who went to high school and college in Brooklyn and was a fanatical Brooklyn Dodgers fan, I’ve been doing cyclone games for 20 years (and thrown 6-7 times on the first pitch.) “
The Shindig wasn’t the only political visit to Long Island that week for a Cyclones game. Democratic MP Tom Suozzi was out on the field on Tuesday to see his son, Cyclone outfielder Joe Suozzi, who was being called up by the St. Lucie Mets.
– Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
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Talking point
Tax cap, coping with rising inflation
Since the New York property tax cap went into effect in 2012, at the urging of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, it has been broadly in line with inflation as measured by the consumer price index.
But that won’t always be the case.
The upper limit is 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower, which means that the number cannot exceed 2%, barring some obscure adjustments to each local limit.
But inflation can be much higher. It just hasn’t done it in a while.
With the end of the pandemic, consumer pockets are full of cash. And with goods, services and affordable labor scarce, inflation is rising now and is expected to stay high.
The ceiling for next year, which state auditor Thomas DiNapoli announced on Wednesday that it will be a maximum of 2%, is the first since the ceiling was introduced, which is significantly different from the inflation figure for the year. That number, measured in the 12 months leading up to June 30 of each year for most government agencies (whose fiscal year begins on January 1), is 5.4% that year, which is a large gap between the rate of increase in costs and that of the cap.
How big could this gap be? Classic cars know.
In the decade from January 1973 to January 1983 prices rose by 129.58%. The total numbers per year were:
1973: 6.18%
1974: 11.05%
1975: 9.14%
1976: 5.74%
1977: 6.50%
1978: 7.63%
1979: 11.25%
1980: 13.55%
1981: 10.37%
1982: 6.13%
If the upper limit had been in effect during these 10 years, the maximum total tax increase over this period would have been 21.9% without breaking it.
As for this point, while the tax cap has proven fantastically popular with the public, the public has never been exposed to a serious campaign to get rid of it by teachers whose salaries are not rising as fast as prices. Or by elected officials warning that a 2% cap in a year when inflation quadruples or quintuples cannot yield enough to provide the services that residents demand.
That’s not to say that tax cap advocates can’t win such a battle.
But it shows that the controversy over the cap could soon grow as fast as prices and much faster than municipal budgets.
– Lane Filler @lanefiller
Pencil tip
Cuban Riots 2021
Dave Granlund Credit: PoliticalCartoons.com/Dave Granlund
You can find more cartoons at www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons
End point
New York style legalization
When Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and Ron Wyden revealed their plan to end the state marijuana ban on Wednesday, New Yorkers may have noticed some similarities.
The draft federal decriminalization proposal, like the state package that legalized adult recreational marijuana use earlier this year, included new funds to reinvest in communities hit by the drug war.
Both efforts included sections on keeping and deleting records, and each proposed regulation and taxation of the substance, with the new stream of funding being a major argument in favor of legalization.
On the legislative side, it’s not that surprising that the federal marijuana proposal sounds familiar.
“Schumer’s office reached out to me some time ago for the draft of my bill and an understanding of how we got there,” said Liz Krueger, sponsor of legalization and Manhattan State senator, The Point on Thursday. She said Schumer’s staff also told her “how committed they were to what we were doing and hoping to get there at the federal level”.
Of course, there are real differences between the two marijuana efforts, not the least of which is that “they start from a place so much more extreme than where the states were,” said Krueger, noting that the NY law already passed The legalization didn’t treat marijuana as harshly as federal law.
But overarching public opinion has moved towards legalizing weeds, a pressure that seems to have guided both efforts. Note that the chief executive who signed the new law in New York, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and the one who would do so in DC, President Joe Biden, were both relatively lukewarm about weed, which Cuomo had not before too long called a “gateway drug”. Biden’s White House ousted some employees this spring for their marijuana use.
Opinion polls these days suggest that most Americans support legalization.
Schumer described his marijuana plan on Wednesday as “not just an idea whose time has come”.
“It’s long overdue,” he added.
– Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano