[SPAM] How New York Subways Got Broke, On Purpose
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1470 .... August 18, 2017
_____________________________________________________
How New York Subways Got Broke, On Purpose
Vincent DeCesare
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is pushing for a tax on the rich to fund desperately needed improvements to the crumbling subway system run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). De Blasio's plan would raise city income taxes on individuals making over $500,000 a year and couples making over $1-million by about half of a per cent, which would raise over $700-million for subway and bus upgrades as well as half-price Metro Cards for the almost 800,000 city residents who are at or below the federal poverty level.
Predictably, New York State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, a Republican from Long Island, shot down the proposal in a statement declaring that "raising... taxes is not the answer." Flanagan didn't bother providing his own answer to the MTA's dire problems, presumably because he's fine with the status quo in which working class New Yorkers pay ever more money for a transit system that is in deep crisis.
Thanks to consistent underfunding from the state, subway delays have increased almost threefold since 2012, and derailments have become ever frequent. In a hyper-gentrified city like New York, the impact of these problems is profound for millions of workers who cannot afford to live near the central business districts.
A survey by the office of New York City Comptroller found that 54 per cent of respondents from the Bronx experienced delays "more than half of the time" or "always," compared to only 25 per cent of Manhattanites. The study also found that residents of low-income neighborhoods were 14 per cent more likely to be reprimanded at work on account of subway delays.
