Golisano to New York: Adios!

Billionaire Tom Golisano wrote a good-bye letter to New York. Why does he have to leave New York to save about $5 million a year?

How did the state get to this point? By spending, spending and spending some more.

* New York’s budget was $72.7 billion in 1999. Ten years later it ballooned to $131.8 billion. Each year, on average, the budget has risen at an astounding 6 percent compounded annual rate — more than dou ble inflation (2.8 percent).

* Medicaid spending alone works out to $2,283 for every man, woman and child in the state. That’s the highest in the nation and twice the national average. In the last decade, the Medicaid budget grew 50 percent (from $30 billion in 1999 to $45 billion in 2009). In almost every sector (hospitals, nursing homes, medicine, clinics and home and community care), spending per recipient regularly exceeds the national average.

Faced with escalating costs and diminishing returns, Albany and its allies — that is, the health-care unions (SEIU Local 1199 has more than 300,000 members, many of whom are politically active) — have only one answer: increase taxes.

* New York spends the most, per pupil, in the nation on education. Our education spending is 63 percent above the national average. Costs went up about 70 percent in the last decade (from $12.7 billion in 1999 to $21.8 billion in 2009).

Like health care, education is something worth spending on and worth investing in, but we’re spending more and getting less. New York City schools graduated only 54 percent of high-school students in 2007; Buffalo, just 47 percent, and Rochester 39 percent. Why do we keep spending more? Perhaps it’s because New York teachers unions spend millions convincing Albany to spend more. And when faced with potential cuts, the union and its allies had one response: increase taxes.

* Nor is it just Albany. After all, local governments tax, too. In New York, the average total state and local tax burden is $5,260 for every man, woman and child. That’s by far the highest in the country. And like Albany, when faced with problems, municipalities have one answer: increase taxes.

Upstate New York has been particularly hard hit. Add unreasonable real-estate taxes to uncontrolled state spending, and you wind up with whole communities decimated. An unworkable assessment process compounds the problem further. The result: Fifteen of the 20 highest-taxed counties in America are right here in Upstate New York. While homeowners in other areas build equity, we just pay more taxes.

I live in one of those counties he refers to, trust me when I tell you he’s right.

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