Opposing Cuts
To The Editor:
Recent announcements from the executive board of the MTA concerning its FY 2011-12 budget indicated that there must be drastic cuts in service on subway and bus lines, 1,000 employees laid off, free transit passes for schoolchildren discontinued, in addition to cut-backs in Access-a-Ride.
For the sake of my constituents, I strongly oppose these proposed cuts and funding reductions proposed by the MTA, especially eliminating the MetroCard student passes, targeting a half-million school children. MTA spokesperson Jeremy Soffin said “the MTA can no longer afford to subsidize this free service,” a reference to the 1995 agreement it made with the City and State splitting the cost, each paying $45 million. During this fiscal year, the State paid $6 million and the city $45 million.
In my district, while we are all relieved and pleased that the MTA changed its proposed service cut and now will not eliminate Z train and Q56 bus service along Jamaica Avenue, eliminating the student MetroCards is unacceptable to my people and will bring grave economic hardships to hard-working families whose children must get to school. The lack of free student MetroCards after all these years would mean many students would drop out of school, graduation rates would decline, and job prospects for such drop-outs would not be bright.
The elimination of free student fares, service cuts and fare hikes would deal a crippling blow to lower-and moderate-income families. A New York family of four with two working parents and two school-age children would see the cost of mass transit increase by approximately $2,300 a year.
I look forward to working with my colleagues in government as we explore with the MTA alternatives to these proposed cuts and as we seek the means necessary to maintain transit services and improve the fiscal efficiency of the MTA. We should avoid some proposed solutions to finding the necessary funding, which include increasing taxes via a higher city business payroll tax again, as enacted last summer, while cutting the same tax in half for suburban businesses. Federal stimulus dollars and redirecting capital funds to cover operating costs should be considered to address the situation.
Alternatively, for a start, I suggest that the MTA needs to cooperate with an independent audit of its internal operations, make administrative cuts, and examine its contracts and spending processes to find the cost-savings before it takes services away from the public or raises fares. As a public authority, it has not been subjected to public scrutiny or adequate fiscal oversight and our economic difficulties now make such oversight imperative.
The Public Authorities Reform Act, effective March 1, 2010, brings the transparency and accountability taxpayers deserve anytime their money is being spent. People have come to believe government serves the interests of politically connected insiders, not them. These reforms are essential to restoring citizens’ confidence in their government. I am optimistic that the increased amount of transparency and fiscal scrutiny will be beneficial to our residents and riders.
The consensus in Queens among daily riders, students and their hard-pressed families seems to be: the MTA needs to get its own house in order before declaring “doomsday” on the public it is supposed to serve. I offer the services of my office to work with anyone to save our residents from service cuts and increased fares.
State Sen. Joe Addabbo,
Ozone Park
Drop The Pork
To The Editor:
There is an obvious solution for finding funding to prevent “MTA Proposed Service Cuts - Crowd’s Pleas Fall On Deaf MTA Ears” (Joseph Orovic, March 4). The Boro President, NYC Council, State Assembly, State Senate, Congress members and Senators each year collectively distribute hundreds of millions worth of individual member item pork barrel projects.
If the Boro President along with each of the Queens 14 Council members, 18 State Assembly members, seven State Senators, six Congress members and two Senators gave up $1 million worth of their own respective member item funding, $48 million dollars saved could go a long way in preserving free student bus passes along with canceling the proposed elimination of bus and subway routes or reductions in frequency of service for all Queens residents.
Larry Penner,
Great Neck
Spelling Woes
To The Editor:
In perusing the latest issue of the Queens Tribune, I noticed that on the Trib Pix page (Tartarstan Invasion with photo of “Tartarstan” delegates and Queens members of the NY State Assembly), you misspelled the word “Tartarstan.” The correct spelling is “Tatarstan” which is one of the 21 Republics that are part of the Russian Federation.
Sadly, two other local Queens newspapers made the same mistake. Given the role that the media plays in informing the public, it is important that the media pay closer attention to this type of detail, given the low level of geographic literacy in the U.S. among young people and adults.
Michael Giammarella,
Bayside
Thanks, Police
To The Editor:
John Patrick Bedell, the alleged shooter at the Pentagon, is another example of psychos running wild. I find it really remarkable how people like John Bedell can acquire guns and go about killing people for no logical reason.
Thanks to the quick thinking of these two wounded officers, Jeffery Amos and Marvin Carraway, who displayed bravery while under fire and did what they had to do. These officers truly prevented a great deal of carnage and a horrific loss of life.
For that we owe these officers our debt of gratitude for saving many countless lives. Let me also point out that many police officers around the country put their lives on the line everyday and even here in Queens our own police do the same. We need to remember what these brave men and women do everyday to serve and protect us. Their jobs are extremely dangerous but without them where would we be.
Fred Bedell Jr.,
Glen Oaks
Progressive?
To The Editor:
What is it about totalitarian governments that enthrall the progressives, liberals and socialists? Their policies achieved no utopias in Russia, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela; and neither created nor produced any advancement for humanity but poverty, despair and a desire to escape to man’s last best hope for freedom, America. The progressives have promised to “fundamentally transform America” so they must be stopped because we have no where to run.
Progressivism, a.k.a. socialism, runs counter to the nature of man. History teaches us that free men like Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, et. al, and not government bureaucracies, created the highest standard of living on the planet. The world’s shortest book would be titled “Government’s Greatest Achievements.”
The progressives seek a return to feudalism and serfdom when monarchs and lords were omnipotent, confiscated the wealth and redistributed it as they saw fit. They claim they can eradicate poverty, illness – even control the weather – because they are better suited to govern. If the wealth of the world was divided evenly among all the people in the world, within a few days there would again be rich men and poor men, diseases and disorders, hot and cold weather.
It is intellectually dishonest to ignore history and reality. The facts are that all totalitarian governments fail, free men in a free market create and produce prosperity; so who in their right mind would want to increase governmental power, limit freedoms, and stifle the free market?
Could it be progressives are mentally disordered?
Ed Konecnik,
Flushing