A deal has been struck among New York State legislators and Gov. Paterson to tax some higher income New Yorkers at a somewhat higher rate. See also the report in the New York Daily News. and the Albany Times Union

In my opinion this is a good deal for New Yorkers and a great victory for the complex coalition of labor unions, community organizations and social service agencies which lobbied for months. The irrational, unplanned and wildly harmful budget cuts proposed by Gov. Paterson will largely be avoided. The increased tax rate will produce about $4 Billion dollars which, while greatly needed is not quite enough.

The worst part of the deal is that the two-step rate increase expires in three years which means we will have to re-fight this fight then.

The coalition, One New York: Fighting For Fairness, will now have to face our Billionaire Mayor who proposes taxes on low and moderate income New York City dwellers. Mr. Bloomberg refuses to tax the personal income of higher earning City dwellers -- preferring instead much higher and very unfair sales taxes.  read more »

Trying to prevent the mass eviction of tenants from their rent regulated apartments is important, in my view. Please consider coming to the demonstration on Saturday on East 3rd Street in Manhattan between 1 Ave. & 2nd Ave.

The tenants at 47 East 3rd Street are threatened with eviction and homelessness (where could they find affordable housing?). Their landlord, stating that the tenants apartments are needed for the personal use of the owners, has won an unprecedented victory in NY State Courts. Any building could be emptied on the basis of such a claim. Yours, mine. I spoke to a rent regulated tenant in Stuyvesant Town who could not imagine being vulnerable to eviction on such a basis. Welcome to 2007.

If you want to participate in the march which starts before the rally, meet me at 9th Street and Avenue B at Noon. After the demonstration, you can go to the Anarchist Book Fair at Judson Memorial Church (55 Washington Square South)only a few block away. What is an anarchist book fair anyway -- disordered books? Books of or books by anarchists?

Power affects the people we elect in odd ways. Two examples:

One of the people I met with Tuesday while lobbying the Legislature for smaller class sizes in NYC, was my Assembly Member Brian Kavanaugh. He ran an anti-establishment campaign in the Democratic party primary, has long progressive service at the City Council. I thought he'd be a fire-eater, a dragon slayer. He wasn't he carefully explained that, in his view, this was not the year to make a stand for smaller classes and that the legislature could revisit the issue in years to come. Mind you, a perfectly reasonable position. He saw no urgency in reigning in Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein.

Mr. Kavanaugh's low key response reminded me of a disturbing email I got from my favorite Congress Member: John Hall. There, he explained to me that "I didn't run for Congress to cast a protest vote; I ran to change the course of our country." Further he said he would not vote with the Congressional "Out of Iraq" caucus and would support Speaker Pelosi's somewhat confused (in my, extremist, view) to end the war in Iraq.

I, of course, want the politicians I vote for or campaign on behalf of, to use their office as a soap-box on which they can take courageous stands. Both of these guys have been in office only a few weeks and they are already sounding as timid as Chris Quinn has become. She, at least, has gotten to wield some actual power.  read more »

STATE ASSEMBLY - DISTRICT 74
Precincts Reported: 110 of 110
Brian P. Kavanagh(D) - winner 5055 (43%)
Sylvia M. Friedman(D) 4681 (40%)
Esther Yang(D) 986 (8%)
Juan Pagan(D) 794 (6%)

Geezus effing cripes! Less than 13,000 people decided this race? That's effed up. There's 25,000 people in Stuy-Town/Peter Cooper alone!

What is most depressing to me was the fact that the other two candidates were so sorely underfunded that I had not heard of them until yesterday.

Which begs the question : Why are the Latino and the Asian candidates so underfunded?

No offense to Kavanagh. Nice guy. But I would have loved to hear from Ms. Yang and Mr. Pagan. Given that Loisaida is such a colored district (albeit of the the lighter melanin kind); it sucks I still have to state the obvious.

Brian Kavanagh

versus

Sylvia Friedman

Who knew a seat on the State Assembly was so sexy.

I've been bombarded with recorded phone calls from Steve Sanders and Eva Moskowitz (urgh, Eva), flyers under my doors and campaign stalkers, I mean, volunteers going on and on about Brian's work.

Yes, I get it, Brian is going to be great.

Yes, I voted for him.

Now leave me alone, will ya!