NYC COMPTROLLER | Chief Economists

Frank Braconi (L) and John Tepper Marlin, Chief Economists to Five NYC
Comptrollers, 1992-2017. Note piñata at upper left.  It did not survive
unscathed. Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.

In 1989, New York City elected David Dinkins Mayor and Liz Holtzman Comptroller. 

It also approved a thoroughly revised New York City Charter, eliminating the historic Board of Estimate.

The NYC Comptroller lost some powers but gained a new responsibility – it must report on the NYC economy every December and must submit to the NYC Council annually its independent tax-revenue estimate based on the Comptroller's economic outlook.

To carry out this and other tasks, the Comptroller created the position of Chief Economist. It has been filled by five economists, all male. Over the 28 years of the title, three economists have held the job for four years. One has just started working in the title under Comptroller Stringer, one is Commissioner of Finance for Mayor de Blasio and the third became economic adviser to former Governor Pataki.

The other two Chief Economists met recently. I was one, the second Chief Economist, having served for 13 years, under Comptrollers Holtzman, Alan Hevesi and Bill Thompson. Frank Braconi was the other, my successor, who served for ten years as Chief Economist, under Comptrollers Thompson, John Liu and Scott Stringer. You might say it was an informal meeting of FOCEA, the Former Office of the (New York City) Comptroller Employees Association.

We met up yesterday evening at a post-election celebration hosted by a Suffolk County gadfly group (Resist & Replace) and the local Democratic party. We are united in getting behind a Democratic candidate in 2018 to defeat Lee Zeldin, a Tea Party incumbent Congressman from New York's District 1.

An early order of business at the event was to tackle the Trump piñata, which may be seen to the upper left in the photo.

Between us, my years and Frank Braconi's at the Comptroller's Office add up to a quarter century and take us through two attacks on the World Trade Center and four Mayors – Dinkins, Giuliani, Bloomberg and de Blasio.

106th Mayor	David Dinkins (b. 1927) Comptroller Holtzman	January 1990 to December 1993	4 years	DEM
107th	Rudy Giuliani (b. 1944) Comptroller Hevesi	January 1994 to December 2001	8 years	GOP
108th	Michael Bloomberg (b. 1942) Comptrollers Thompson, Liu	January 2002 to  December 2013	12 years	GOP
				NO PARTY
109th	Bill de Blasio (b. 1961) Comptroller Stringer	January 2014 to  Incumbent	4 years & Counting	DEM

Postscript, January 28, 2018: Meanwhile, Eric Wollman visited Vero Beach, Florida, and we had our third annual Florida meeting of FOCEA. 

Voting - Last-minute donors are buying "stock at 52-week high"

De Blasio and Early Supporters, Brooklyn. Photo by JT Marlin.

Crains Insider has an inform-ative story by Andrew Hawkins about real estate developers resignedly writing checks, for the max allowable, to mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio -- even though it is late, one week before the election and de Blasio is a shoo-in with a 45-percentage-point spread between him and Joe Lhota.

What impressed me most about the article was a campaign contributor's acknowledging that late giving to a candidate was not buying much, that it was like "buying a stock at its 52-week high", as opposed to important early volunteering and money that paid for de Blasio's advertising campaign. The EMILY in "Emily's List" stands for "Early Money Is Like Yeast."

Both labor unions and real estate contributors mostly put their early bets on Christine Quinn or Bill Thompson. Polls as of February showed Quinn ahead three to one, with de Blasio just one percentage point behind Thompson, and I noted that de Blasio had the advantage of incumbency. But then Anthony Weiner shot into first place, showing that enthusiasm for front-runners Quinn and Thompson was weak. So when Weiner's campaign faded, de Blasio's ad featuring Dante Blasio and his Afro provided the boost for de Blasio to take Weiner's place in the lead. After de Blasio won the Democratic primary outright, it became clear that Joe Lhota was battling against a huge spread in the polls. Lhota's attack ad on crime got nothing for him, as de Blasio added five percentage points to his lead. So the campaign cash is now flooding in to de Blasio's campaign.

The final debate between de Blasio and Lhota is on Wednesday evening (sandwiched between the anniversary of Sandy on Tuesday and Halloween on Thursday) from 7 to 8 pm on NBC-TV.

NY LAW SCHOOL | Quinn Is a Pro

Speaker Christine Quinn at NY Law School,
Friday, Feb. 15.

A recent NY1-Marist poll shows New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn as the three-to-one favorite to be the next mayor of New York City. Her speech this morning at the New York Law School Forum (see photo above) was consistent with the polling.

Being a front-runner is a hazardous position, and Speaker Quinn's job today was to hold her place. She did that.

She was elected to the City Council in 1999 from my neighborhood, Chelsea, so she has a favorite-daughter position around here. She has been Speaker since 2006. She is ahead, by a convincing 37% to 13%, over former NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, whose base has been Brooklyn but now lives in Manhattan. Some of my good friends are backing Mr. Thompson and are counting on a runoff between him and Quinn that he might win. Thompson did surprisingly well in the last election against Mayor Bloomberg, but analysts interpret this as more of a vote against a third term for the Mayor than as deep support for Mr. Thompson. Also, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is only one percentage point (12%) behind Thompson in the poll and de Blasio has the advantage of incumbency.

On the Republican side, Joe Lhota, who worked for Mayor Rudy Giuliani and has more recently been running the MTA, is the favorite. In a lopsidedly Democratic city, it's a long shot for him - the poll shows him losing to Quinn 64% to 18%. More worrisome for him is that only 20% of respondents supported him - most respondents didn't know enough about the GOP candidates to make any choice at all. He can count on getting enough campaign finance support to run a significant challenge. But money is not usually enough to win in New York City as many wealthy also-rans will testify. Mayor Bloomberg got his foot in the door because of 9/11, after which people were properly concerned about the future of New York City as a business engine, and Bloomberg's business acumen was a convincing asset.

There is still talk of other people entering the race this year, but it's nearly March and doors are closing. So those who are concerned about LAM - Life After Mike - assembled at the breakfast forum to build up their dossiers on Ms. Quinn, who would be the first female mayor of New York City and the first openly gay mayor. The event attracted more than 250 people by my count. A streaming-video recording of the event is here.

Ross Sandler, NY Law School host.

Ross Sandler is the host (see photo at left). His breakfast event is the closest thing to a successor to the City Club of New York, which played a significant role in the City of New York for more than 100 years, including in the fiscal crisis and then the mayoralty of the late Ed Koch. A moment of respectful silence for the loss of a great Mayor... and another moment for the demise of the City Club.

The New York Law School's location near the NYC courts makes it convenient for students who may want to get a law degree at night. Its location make is easy to find faculty to teach part-time. My connection with the NY Law School is that my great-aunt Inez Milholland's brother got his law degree after a career as a Harvard football kicker (he was class of 1912), which in those days got the columns of newspaper ink now lavished on the pro teams. Inez Milholland, by the way, was the woman who led on her horse the march down Pennsylvania Avenue on the eve of President Wilson's inauguration - a march that set the stage for passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote. (The NY Times on March 4 led off with paragraphs about Miss Milholland.) The 100th anniversary of this march is in two weeks.

Questioners in two lines.
Revered City Club tradition (sniff).

Chris Quinn was a pro, took questions with a combination of respect and firmness, and lightening up the atmosphere with believable stories about her Irish grandfather and her mother's fear of a hex:

If you take down the Christmas tree before Three Kings Day, it will be a curse on you for the rest of the year. 

She listened to tough questions from Charlie Komanoff, Roger Herz and Azi Paybarah about congestion pricing and Commissioner Kelly (whom she would like to stay on) and stop-and-frisk laws. She expresses sympathy with a problem like sound cannons and either gives an "I will look into it" or (in the case of congestion pricing) a "no chance that will  happen soon" answer. She supported the mayor in his bid for congestion pricing, but makes clear that the outer-borough opposition is  strong and this plan is on ice in 2013. In a political environment where a candidate walks a narrow path between cannons to the left and cavalry to the right, with minefields in the middle, she got to the other side with a sure step and no mishap. She did mention Verizon as failing to keep all its mobile phone subscribers in communication during Hurricane Sandy and then Prof. Sandler sheepishly noted that Verizon was a co-sponsor of the breakfast; when informed of this she sort of said she was sorry and breezed on.

To my mind, the test of the day was whether we would have a Marco Rubio water-bottle problem. No way.   She is on top of her game.

It's still "early times" for the 2013 Democratic Primary on September 10. Good politicians focus earnestly on the next election, not so much the one(s) that may occur soon after - because, as the late Howard Samuels once discovered, there is no point in worrying about the later election if you lose the earlier one. Based on her performance today, I would say that Speaker Quinn will continue to lead the pack come September 10.

NYC TAXES | Plucking the Golden Geese

March 10, 2009–French Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the second after Fouquet to serve under Louis XIV, said that the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.

The golden geese in New York City are the top 1 percent of NYC taxpayers, the 41,282 filers earning $500,000 or more. They pay 47.8 percent of the $7.3 billion collected by the city in income taxes. The concentration of golden feathers is much greater now than in 1993, when approximately the same share of taxes, 47.6 percent, was paid by more than five times as large a share of taxpayers, the 5.5 percent earning $100,000 or more.

Why has the concentration of taxpayers become so much more intense? Three explanations come to mind: (1) Inflation ($100,000 ain’t worth what it was in 1993). (2) The financial bubble, which in recent years was good to top-earning New Yorkers. (3) The number of NYC personal income-tax filers, which has increased to 4.1 million from 2.7 million in 1990.

One thing hasn’t changed much–average personal income tax rates in Manhattan are higher than in the other boroughs. Back in 1993, the average effective tax rate was 3.05 percent–3.58 percent in Manhattan and less than 3 percent in all of the other four boroughs.

NY City and NY State officials are seeking to raise tax rates further on the highest categories of personal incomes. Council Speaker Christine Quinn has proposed boosting the city's income tax from 3.65 to 4.25 percent for those earning $297,000 or more; to 4.45 percent for those making $532,000 and to 4.65 percent (a percentage-point increase) for the $1.2 million league and above. Comptroller Bill Thompson is supporting higher taxes for the top category.

Albany legislators are also seeking to raise the state income tax -- from 6.85 percent to 8.25 percent for people making a minimum of $250,000; 8.97 percent for those making $500,000 and above in taxable income and 10.3 percent for those at the $1-million-and-up level.

NYC’s budget director, Mark Page, has argued that the City’s golden geese have wings and can fly. He says:

The basic concern is how do you collect revenue from New York City's tax base if you have a relatively small group of individuals paying a very large proportion of your income-tax revenue.

A consoling fact for New Yorkers is that state and local taxes have been deductible against income on which federal taxes are imposed. But there is a question about what new tax rules will emerge from the budget debate that is taking place in Washington.