The following statement is an endorsement by two economists of Perry Gershon as the best candidate to represent Suffolk County (NY-1) residents in the U.S. Congress. Dr. Frank P. Braconi served as Executive Director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York before serving as the chief economist for three New York City Comptrollers in 2006-2015. Dr. John Tepper Marlin was the chief economist for three New York City Comptrollers in 1992-2006. Before that he worked as an economist for three federal agencies and was subsequently senior economist for nearly four years at the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress.
We are have lived for decades in Suffolk County and got to know Perry Gershon during the past few years as he has been running for the Democratic nomination to represent NY-1 in the Congress.
Why do we economists support Perry to win back NY-1? Because Perry understands why Trump’s promises to make the economy work better have failed. Perry understands that Trump rammed through a tax cut that helped big corporations and their shareholders more than small businesses, and the cuts were paid for in part by capping the deductibility of state and local taxes. This hurt middle-class taxpayers in suburban areas like Suffolk County, which was suffering economically even before the pandemic hit.
Perry understands the disaster of Trump’s closing down the White House pandemic preparedness unit, a mistake for which Suffolk County paid a steep price. An unready Trump first postponed actions recommended by his advisers and then came up with some wildly improbable ideas about possible treatments for the disease. Perry understands that a major reason for unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression is terrible leadership from the White House.
The foundations of economic prosperity are health, education and personal security. Trump has undermined all three, and Lee Zeldin has helped do this for Suffolk County:
- On the health front, he used economic arguments for many of his anti-environmental votes. His voting record in his last full term was rated by environmental organizations as one of the three worst of Members of Congress from New York State. Zeldin and Trump have sought to undermine Obamacare. The number of uninsured Americans is rising during the Trump administration. Covid-19 has shown just how important it is that healthcare coverage extends to everyone.
- On education,Trump’s cap on the state and local tax deduction hurts the ability of local governments and school boards all across Suffolk County to seek improvements in educational funding. Twice in 2019 Zeldin has voted against repeal of this law.
- On personal safety, Zeldin has also supported the right of those who would deny the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies. Perry is also staunchly in favor of gun safety, while Zeldin is not. Perry has acted on his outrage at the murder of George Floyd by joining several local protests. Zeldin is missing from them.
In return for his slavish following of the President’s bidding, what has Zeldin gotten for Suffolk County? In December 2019, Suffolk County lost jobs from a year earlier. Its job growth was in the lowest one-eighth of large U.S. counties.
Other counties that lost jobs, like Westchester, at least saw higher incomes than most other counties. Suffolk's income growth was just as bad as its poor job growth.
As we come out of our lockdowns, we will need to rebuild our economy while maintaining our public health standards. Perry knows how that should be done. He has built four small businesses, one of which was a sports bar at age 23. The other three businesses were in commercial real estate lending. Perry combines the independence he gets from having succeeded in the private sector with a cooperative approach that means he can work with the many disparate groups that make up NY-1.
We support Perry because we think Suffolk County has tremendous economic potential that is not being tapped. The nation is hurting, but Suffolk County taxpayers are hurting more than most. Perry can make the best case to expose the failures of our Tea Party Congressman and go on to make a difference in Washington, D.C. by representing small businesses and middle-class taxpayers in Suffolk County.
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