Stop Digging (continued) by Tom Reynolds
On Monday SCOPE reported on the saying: If you find yourself in a hole…stop digging. There’s more to say.
New York's biggest budget headaches this year were housing and bail reform that dragged the budget a month past its deadline.
But next year, New York's budget deficit could be the first priority. (What? NY Democrats worried about fiscal responsibility? Have they dug a hole so deep even they must stop digging? Not likely.)
As state spending grows faster than revenues, NY State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, predicted a shortfall of $9.1 Billion next year and $13.4 Billion the following year.
The left-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute suggested dipping into the state's $19.5 Billion in reserves, rather than cutting expenses. In their minds, there must not be any waste in the NY budget to be cut. (They also can’t do basic math since the two year deficits total $22.5 Billion and reserves are only $19.5 Billion. And what happens in year three when the reserves are gone?)
DiNapoli countered that reserves, "…cannot replace fiscal discipline or be relied upon to plug recurring budget gaps." (Ya think!)
DiNapoli lowered his estimates for future tax income because of reduced personal income tax payments, that's partly due a steady exodus of taxpayers, including some of the state's highest earners. (See SCOPE’s comment about Tribeca in our email of August 14th, “Defund and Destroy the police” S.C.O.P.E. Shooters Committee On Political Education - Defund and Destroy the Police.)
Remember the inflation caused by federal spending that Biden claims to have whipped by increased federal spending? Part of that was ‘pandemic relief’ of about $15 Billion which won’t be there anymore.
Perhaps Kathy Hochul and the socialist NY Legislators will look to solving the budget problem the way China solved its youth unemployment problem.
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China is in a hole on youth unemployment. For those 16 to 24, in June, unemployment was officially 21.3% and some believe it is higher, perhaps as much as double when you include those who have stopped looking for work. (What, the Chinese government lie about a statistic!)
But China has a solution.
If you don’t like the numbers…stop counting. China authorities have suspended publication of data on this.
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President Trump has been indicted in Georgia for, basically, denying that he lost the 2020 election. Can we expect Stacy Abrams, who denies she lost the Georgia governor’s election, to also be indicted?
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The U S Army’s Fort Hood is now known as Fort Cavasos. It is named after the Army’s first Hispanic four star general. Which raises two questions: was he promoted on merit or because he was Hispanic? Isn’t naming him because of being Hispanic a form of bias? (Remember the pre-woke days when forts / camps etc. were named after heroic people like Marine Camp Smedley D Butler being named after a Marine who won the Congressional Medal of Honor – twice.)
While the woke forces in Washington D C were busy being…woke, they seem to have forgotten something. Legal Insurrection reported on August 17th about Fort Cavasos that: ‘The base had only two of its 10 major dining options open every day for much of the summer, with three others open only during limited times. The closures forced many soldiers to drive long distances across base, sometimes an hour round trip for their meals.’
‘But not all junior soldiers have vehicles, and the base provides only a limited shuttle service, with none dedicated to dining facilities. The service is so limited that some service members interviewed by Military.com didn’t even know it exists.’
I wonder if retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, ever heard of the saying attributed to both Frederick the Great and Napolean that “An army travels on its stomach.”
You may remember that Milley and his woke counterparts in D C presided over the Afghanistan withdrawal, too.
No one will ever call Milley “the Great” but there was an English king called 'Æthelred the Unready’ who comes to mind.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that during the last fiscal year, 122 gun dealers had their licenses revoked by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is up from 90 the year before and 27 the year before. During the Trump and Obama presidencies, the number of licenses revoked never exceeded 81.
Anthony Navarro, a gun dealer, said, "This policy is designed to be a backdoor violation of the Second Amendment." (Ya think!)
In the end, this may not work out well for citizen safety and crime prevention, not that that was ever high on the Biden agenda. Peter Forcelli, a retired deputy assistant director at the ATF said, "The gun dealers were our first line of defense against gun trafficking. Why are we now beating an ally into submission?"
Even the current ATF agrees: “Federal Firearms Licensees are often our first line of defense against gun crime and are often a source of critical enforcement information that helps law enforcement identify straw purchasers and disrupt firearms trafficking schemes," ATF Spokesperson Kristina Mastropasqua said.
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The problem with the hole that these people are digging is that they will take the rest of us down with them.
