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I have to hand it to the MTA, I didn’t think they could get any worse but somehow their new proposal to close their $1.2 billion budget proves to outshine all of their other brilliant ideas. The MTA used to threaten that they were going to add tolls to the East Side Bridges and add a payroll tax to avoid having to raise fares by 23%. The new revised plan, adds tolls to the East Side Bridges, raises the tolls on the bridges and tunnels that already exist, raises the fare by 23%, cuts service and 1,100 jobs.  That’s a raw deal if I have ever seen one. It’s almost worse than investment bankers taking home million dollar bonuses after tanking the economy.  The MTA claims that all of these measures together will help close their budget gap within the year but what I want to know is if that happens(which we all know that it won’t), is the MTA going to lower the fares back down and take away the tolls on the bridges? Are they going to rehire all of the people they are about to fire? They may never get the same kind of revenue from taxes that they used to, and even if they do, it’s going to be a while.  So I ask you MTA, what is  your long term plan for funding- just keep sticking tolls everywhere? Maybe you should charge a toll to walk across avenues, or different neighborhoods. That seems about as fair as anything else.

So I received a pretty generic email last night from Senator Liz Krueger in response to my complaint about the MTA proposals. What strikes me, is that this situation appears to have only one of two choices to MS. Liz. Either we increase the fare by 23% and cut service, or we implement a payroll tax and charge people to cross the East River. Well I don’t like either of those solutions Liz. We all know that if you start charging people $2 on bridges this year, by next year it will be $3, and by 2011 it will be $5 like all of the other bridges. It wasn’t that long ago that the toll on other NYC bridges were $3(I am not that old and my long term memory is not that good to remember something far away). If you don’t increase the subway fare now, you’ll do it next year. Face it, the MTA is the worst run institution in America. It is the 6th largest debtor in the US and all of the other debtors are entire states or cities.  We need to use our head Liz and brainstorm some new ideas.Isn’t the Fed releasing like a trillion more dollars in economic stimulus money? Why don’t we get our hands on some of that.  I agree that we need to rebuild our crumbling transit system and prevent service cuts, but if you are looking for a long term fix, which you claim you are, charging people $2 to cross a river is not your answer. And I can’t believe I am goign to defend big businesses, but I don’t see why it is there job either to pay taxes for this.

Maybe it is because I missed my  yoga class this week, which typically restores my faith in other people and gives me a more “enlightened” and positive view on the world. Or maybe this week has just been disappointing. Governor Patterson continues to disappoint me  with his ideas for the MTA overhaul and all I can think about is where is Mayor Bloomberg in all of this? He knows way more about the MTA than Patterson does and I don’t hear him say much about it.

Then there is Pope Benedict, who makes a trip to Africa to tell people that condoms are not the answer to AIDS. Is he serious? More than 22 million people in Sub Saharan Africa have HIV, and a major leader in the world is trying to convince them that abstinence, not condoms, is the answer. Well unfortunately, Pope Benedict, AIDS or no AIDS, people are going to have sex. Even if people wait until they are married to have sex, they will still pass along the HIV virus if they have it. Millions of children are orphans at young ages because both of their parents die. If your whole family  is dead wouldn’t you want to reproduce and have a family again?  Should we tattoo HIV + on people with the disease so people know who they can and can’t marry? Instead of teaching people safe ways to have sex and protect themselves from HIV transmission, you are basically undoing all of the progress that other people have made in teaching Africans how to protect themselves.  If you want to help the people of Africa, you should find money to provide them with the HIV drugs they need in order to survive or help promote sexual education.

And my biggest qualm this week- AIG. I’m too disgusted to really say much. But I am close to quitting my job so that I don’t have to pay taxes anymore and I can just collect money from the government. They should probably pay me a retention bonus just so that I keep working. Because, you know no one out there is as qualified as me to do my job. I will end with a quote from Jackie Calmes and Louise Story from the NYTimes:

The company paid the bonuses, including more than $1 each to 73 people, to almost all of the employees in the financial products unit responsible for creating the exotic derivatives that caused AIG’s near collapse and started the government rescue to avoid a global financial crisis.

No one could have explained it better than these two.

This is fabulous.

http://gothamist.com/2009/03/10/keep_it_going.php

Obama’s announcement yesterday that his new government plans to support human embryonic stem cell research is a huge step forward for us as a nation. HUGE. Obama’s order will allow research on already existing stem cell lines to go forward. I am hopeful that huge advances will be made since researchers everywhere will receive money from the federal stimulus package, which is an improvement from the underground funding they receive now. While Obama has to wait for Congress to overturn the Dickey-Wicker ban that prevents researchers from creating new lines of stem cells, I am still thrilled about the first step we have taken. As for whether America’s tax dollars go to funding this type of research in the future, I will say this: There are a lot of things people don’t want their taxes to pay for. But like it or not, that is how our system works. I don’t want to pay medicare and medicaid for smokers with lung disorders. I don’t want to want the majority of my tax dollars to go to a war in Iraq that never should have started in the first place (Side note: go to http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs?location_type=1&state=36&program=577&submit_tradeoffs=from_costofwar&tradeoff_item_item=999 to find out how much you have spent on the war so far. It’s sickening.)

As for being a controversial issues, I think people really need to get off their high horses a little and try to think of the greater good. Almost everyone in this country has been affected by a horrible disease personally, whether they had the disease or not. Diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Cancer, spinal cord injuries, you name it and someone you know has it. It’s really time to reevalulate our values, and rally consider how much ground they hold when compared to the number of lives research and treatment in this field could save. in addition. I think people need more education about where stem cells come from. Religious conservatives hear the word embryo and they automatically say no. But why? Embryonic stem cells, which are the stem cells that yield the widest range of possibilities in terms of becoming other cells, aren’t even close to becoming a human life. They are extracted from a mass of cells called the blastocyst, which is literally just a ball of cells. If you can look at this picture and honestly tell me that extracting some cells from here is not worth saving an ailing human life, well, I think you need new glasses (or a psychiatrist).

I have no hard feelings towards people who feel so strongly against it that they choose to opt out of treatment. That is their right, just as it is their right to refuse an abortion. However, people should at least be given the option of stem cell treatment and I am really hopeful that Obama will give it to us.

I have some major qualms with the MTA. This hasn’t been so much a recent development, as a growing disdain over the last dozen years or so. I love the subway when it works. It’s quick, it’s efficient and it’s the cheapest way to get around. Sometimes you even get a new car that doesn’t smell like homeless man or break your eardrums. That is a very special day. But this is not always the case. Have you ever tried to get the G train from Queens to Williamsburg? It seems so simple but somehow two hours later you have ended up neither in Queens or Brooklyn. It runs on weekends, it only runs on weekdays, it goes backwards to go forwards, it only runs at night, it doesn’t run past 11PM, it goes local, it goes express. Huh? Well I certainly don’t know. I can’t imagine what will happen in the face of a budget cut.

I don’t agree with putting tolls on the East Side bridges to help eschew budget cuts. I agree it is not very eco-friendly for people to drive to work, but they probably have no better option.  So many sections of the outer boroughs are completely devoid of public transportation that routes to work or school could take two hours, involving any combination of buses, subways, LIRR, taxis, and ferries. Not only is it exhausting but it’s not practical to travel two hours to and from work or school everyday. Instead of taxing these people for crossing a river within their own city, I think it would be more efficient to give them another alternative.There are express buses that run from the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, but they cost 2.5x as much as a regular fare. Can you explain the logic behind not building subway lines in the outer boroughs to save money and then providing those commuters with an alternative but charging them more for it and then wanting to charge them an additional tax when they want to drive to work? Oh the backwards musings of the MTA….There has to be a better solution than that.

On the other hand, if the senators in Albany don’t vote to help the MTA, everyone suffers. Millions of people ride the subway each day and any form of service cut or impairment in the repair and construction of the old and crumbling system quickly becomes disastrous. But what I want to know, is who is in charge of the accounting department over at the Metropolitan Transit Authority? They must have been awarded their  CPA outside a crack den in the village in the 70’s.  On November 17, 2005, Sewell Chan wrote in the NYTimes:

In February, it was $76 million. In July, it ballooned to $833 million. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced its third - and, it hopes, final - estimate for the size of its surplus this year: $1.044 billion…The authority does not expect its good fortune - soaring proceeds from real estate taxes and unusually low interest rates - to last. It anticipates a net deficit of $152 million in 2007, rising to $934 million in 2009, and that projection assumes fare and toll increases in both years.

It seems as though the MTA knew they would be totally bankrupt back in 2005. Were they in on something we are not, or were they going to beg for money regardless of the current housing crisis and economic collapse? Where did all of this money go? One second they have a deficit, the next they miscalculated the deficit by a couple million dollars and they have a surplus and the next year they are in a major deficit again. How do they come up with these numbers? I feel like they just watch Yolanda Vega pull the Lotto numbers and decide if they want to make it millions or billions on the plus side or in the red.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I would be pretty pissed if the monthly metro card increased to over $100. So if you have thoughts or feelings about the issue, visit http://keepnewyorkmoving.org/ and share your thoughts with Governor Patterson.

5. A-rod tears the labrum in his hip on purpose to eschew his steroids scandal. He will be recovering from shame and scrutiny for 6-9 weeks.

4. Tattoo sleeves made it past the wild card round in American Idol.  I am less tone deaf than that girl. Did you really get rid of Anoop dog for that girl? Take Paula off her valium and let her speak her mind. Your show would be so much more entertaining.

3. Did Ramonna really ask Governor Patterson if he was blind? I’m pretty sure that really happened.

2. Hosea won Top Chef and Carla wasn’t even in the running. If there is one thing Carla taught us, it is to always stick to your gut and do things your way. Never rely on someone else, especially when they have failed in the past. I still love you Carla. And FYI Hosea, fifth grade is over.

1. Chris Brown and Rihanna are married? That makes total sense. Because if I were famous and beautiful and had tons of money and talent, I would probably marry someone who bashed my head into a car window and continually punched me until I looked like a swollen raccoon.