The Hoboken Tax Reform Coalition
What is Reform?
In a previous discussion, Joe Brennan referred to a "split" in Reform between those who are satisfied with a government that is not run by crooks, and those who believe that the government should focus like a laser on cutting taxes as quickly and deeply as possible.
In my opinion there is, in fact, a split, but Mr. Brennan has not characterized it correctly.
Mr. Brennan, "overtaxed" and others believe that high taxes and big government are themselves the problem. Mayor Zimmer's job is to tackle the problem directly by cutting the budget and taxes immediately by as much as possible, leaving the government to adjust itself to whatever funding it has left. This is in effect Grover Norquist's "starve the beast" philosophy. It is grounded in the libertarian belief that government has few legitimate public functions and should be made as small as possible.
Mainstream reformers represented by the Mayor, Kids First and their supporters, believe that high taxes are not the problem itself but a severe symptom of the real problem. This group believes that the real problem is not government itself, but bad government characterized by self-dealing, incompetance and lack of accountability.
Those that are happy with Zimmer (and KF) point to the real steps taken to make our government more professional and accountable, like hiring highly qualified directors with no personal or political stake in the pre-existing disfunctional and corrupt system. They believe that if we continue on the path of making our government better, many things, including the quality of our government services, our bloated budget and our high tax rate, will improve dramatically as a result.
It does not appear that the first group has anywhere near the votes to actually elect one of their adherents to office, but they do have the ability to affect elections on the margins and act as "spoilers," a result that would set back their own agenda as well as the agenda of mainstream reform.
In my opinion, that group should continue to aggressively make their voices heard to prevent mainstream reform from taking their votes for granted. In so doing, they will help keep reform focused and help make government better.
But election challenges like Real Results need to be more responsibly and carefully considered based on a dispassionate and realistic assessment of the electorate, and abandoned when they have no real chance of success. The real results of "Real Results" are a powerful indication that the "Hoboken Tea party" plain and simply does not have anywhere near the votes to be anything more than spoilers, and that's not likely to change any time soon.
Mr. Brennan's earlier post contains the observation that had the "old guard" been united RR would have been successful at being "spoilers" and at least some of the "old guard" would have won. He also threatens that if mainsteam reform doesn't toe the line, next time the RR group may succeed - not in getting elected but in sabotaging mainstream reform, causing them to lose or into unhealthy alliances with the "old guard."
He may be right, but its hard to see how anyone interested in good government would view this as a positive accomplishment. We all need to respect and listen to each other and work together to improve our town. If each of us lets our idea of the "perfect" become the enemy of the "good" we'll wind up going back to the bad.
And we've come way too far too let that happen.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by khoboken on -
I will be happy not to respond further on the issue - but to circle back to the original post - if you are interested in reducing taxes - there is alot of common ground - which never does get explored as the dicsussions ususally devolve into a "your a tenant - no your a developer" mentality and the reality is that real estate is a fertile ground for abusive local policies which have the effect of raising taxes on the average homeowner disproportionately. I appluad the effort to try and find a common ground. Sorry if I appeared to highjack the thread - I abhor Piltos and rent conrol equally because in the hands of politicians, they have become abusive in their application and a petrie dish for corruption. Taxes should be colelcted only to pay for programs that have social benefits in both theory AND application.
robert randall said:Jack - I agree that the rent control discussion is a tangent and we should return this discussion to the topic of exploring the different philosophies that divide reform and figuring out how best to move forward on our points of agreement. I think the discussion on rent control is healthy, though it belongs in another thread. We need to openly and amicably discuss both our points of agreement and our points of disagreement, and sometimes agree to disagree.
We can't let our points of disagreement stop us from working together to achieve the many things that virtually all reformers agree upon.
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Permalink Reply by robert randall on
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I agree - the devil is often in the details, and good ideas in theory often work out in surprising ways.
Take civil service for example. It was intended as a good government "reform" creating a professional beaurocracy to replace government by political hacks. Had I been around at the time Teddy Roosevelt instituted it, I'm sure I would have been one of its biggest boosters.
In practice, at least in Hoboken, it has made the meritocrasy it was intended to facilitate impossible to create. It has institutionalized the political hiring of past administrations a "professional politicalhackcrasy" instead of a professional meritocracy.
The law of unintended consequences means that we need to constantly reevaluate and tinker. We can't declare something a good idea and refuse to revisit it whether or not its working the way we anticipated.
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Permalink Reply by khoboken on
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I think we are finding some common ground here. :) The practice of allwing sitting council members, and a BA, related to members of the municipal workforce vote on contracts was the epitome of the fox watching the hen house. It was the taxpayers who got screwed. Just elimintating that thumb off the scale is a type of reform that I think can be agreed on. Similar efforts to change exisiting embedded practices and looking at policies clearly will yield results as well.
robert randall said:I agree - the devil is often in the details, and good ideas in theory often work out in surprising ways.
Take civil service for example. It was intended as a good government "reform" creating a professional beaurocracy to replace government by political hacks. Had I been around at the time Teddy Roosevelt instituted it, I'm sure I would have been one of its biggest boosters.
In practice, at least in Hoboken, it has made the meritocrasy it was intended to facilitate impossible to create. It has institutionalized the political hiring of past administrations a "professional politicalhackcrasy" instead of a professional meritocracy.
The law of unintended consequences means that we need to constantly reevaluate and tinker. We can't declare something a good idea and refuse to revisit it whether or not its working the way we anticipated.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Kurta on -
I believe an encore performance is in order. Fox in the henhouse, laid out for all to see and understand. Who was advocating for the taxpayer? Don't forget that former Mayor Roberts was also a Hoboken firefighter on leave....and before him, Russo - Hoboken teacher, Pasculli - Hoboken teacher, and Cappiello - HPD sergeant.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Kurta on
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Consider also that a large number of folks in town pay little or no property taxes. Hoboken Housing Authority, Church Towers, Clock Towers, Marine View Plaza, Columbian Towers, and Applied Housing all pay far less than the rent-controlled, the under-valuated, and the recently PILOTed. What's more, these folks are, for the most part, not satisfied with their arrangement but are determined to screw the rest of us with their choices at the polls. Consider the following map which shows the results of the June 2009 mayoral runoff, with Cammarano districts in red and Zimmer districts in green. The blue pushpins represent the above subsidized housing locations.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Kurta on
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Hoboken has been:
1. Corrupt
2. Dysfunctional
3. In the business of demanding high taxes for less-than-stellar services
Before you can address number three (and it needs to be addressed!), you must first fix numbers one and two. That is what reform is.
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Permalink Reply by robert randall on
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Thank you Eric. I wish I'd said that. In a few short words you've encapsulated much of what I've been trying to say in my long winded posts. The debate is between those of us who think we need to address 1 & 2 first, and those who believe we can do everything at once with a wave of our enlightened reform wand.
Eric Kurta said:Hoboken has been:
1. Corrupt
2. Dysfunctional
3. In the business of demanding high taxes for less-than-stellar services
Before you can address number three (and it needs to be addressed!), you must first fix numbers one and two. That is what reform is.
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Permalink Reply by Jack Dawkins on
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Bravo, Mr. Kurta - very well said. I think we've made some headway on political corruption.
One question, are you sure about Clock Towers and applied paying low taxes? They have (and are going) to market rents, unit by unit by unit. Is some developer (once again) getting a break at the tax payers expense?
robert randall said:Thank you Eric. I wish I'd said that. In a few short words you've encapsulated much of what I've been trying to say in my long winded posts. The debate is between those of us who think we need to address 1 & 2 first, and those who believe we can do everything at once with a wave of our enlightened reform wand.
Eric Kurta said:Hoboken has been:
1. Corrupt
2. Dysfunctional
3. In the business of demanding high taxes for less-than-stellar services
Before you can address number three (and it needs to be addressed!), you must first fix numbers one and two. That is what reform is.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Kurta on
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Interesting that you should ask - concerned citizens will be looking into just that within the next few months. It is believed that not all converted market-rate rentals may be contributing their market-rate share, but that's just a hunch at this point. Stay tuned. Applied has seen some turnover, but Clock Towers - like Church Towers - reportedly has very low turnover and therefore very few market-rate units. My early research on Clock Towers rents confirms that.
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Permalink Reply by Jack Dawkins on
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When you start your research, suggest you speak with some members of the rent leveling board about rents at clock towers - from what I've heard (based on RLB hearings) some are quite high.
Eric Kurta said:Interesting that you should ask - concerned citizens will be looking into just that within the next few months. It is believed that not all converted market-rate rentals may be contributing their market-rate share, but that's just a hunch at this point. Stay tuned. Applied has seen some turnover, but Clock Towers - like Church Towers - reportedly has very low turnover and therefore very few market-rate units. My early research on Clock Towers rents confirms that.
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