Reforming Local Government (New York, York, Accord: attorney, taxi, taxes)

[johntedder]

According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, our system of local government is broken. There are 10,521 units of government that duplicate services creating needless, wasteful bureaucracies. He is proposing legislation to empower citizens and local governments to consolidate or dissolve these redundant entities.

You can read about it on the Attorney General's website. On the same site, you can also watch a half-hour video of AG Andrew Cuomo giving a presentation on reforming local government.

In a December 2008 press release Cuomo said: “Despite New Yorkers drowning for decades in some of the nation’s highest taxes, local leaders have been blocked from reforming local government in an effort to cut government waste and reduce the tax burden. During this economic crisis, leaders have an historic opportunity to fundamentally reform this state’s patchwork quilt of local government entities. These layers upon layers of taxing entities have a chokehold on state residents, and antiquated and arcane laws governing them perpetuate government inefficiency. Our goal is to reform those laws so communities, where appropriate, can reduce local government burden and reduce the cost of living in this great state.”

We New Yorkers deserve a better government than we've got.