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It's really not apples to oranges... it's demonstrating that the tax rate is obscenely high.
But to give another example, which would be a better value for your money (figuring a 30 year mortgage @ 4.5%, no down payment or pmi for the sake of calculations)?
1. A 2,000 sqft $150,000 house, with a $5,000/yr tax burden
2. A 2,000 sqft $200,000 house, with a $1,400/yr tax burden and $50/mo HOA fee.
Edit: I should have mentioned, the numbers also include $300/yr for homeowner's insurance.
The monthly payment for each is the same (within $5). The choice is clearly #2, you end up building an additional $50,000 in equity (not including appreciation). That's not even looking at the benefits once you have the mortgage paid off... you'd end up paying an additional $3,000/yr on #1.
Where are you getting your numbers for one?
Also, what about the quality of service that you pay for with those taxes?
I will add this to the discussion. While I definitely agree our taxes in NY are way too high, the SHOULD be higher than the taxes in the south; taxes in the south actually need to increase; hence the reason I am always wary for others when I see them comparing property taxes in NC or GA or wherever and get shiny-eyed. The traffic in the Raleigh area is pretty bad, especially for a city its size; road construction really needs to be revved up and while they are doing the best they can;, its not adequate because there isn't enough funding. Don't even get me started on the school systems down there but it can be summed up in just 4 words...county wide school system. NOT something we want here. Not only does the quality of schools suffer from the size of the school district, but it is dramatically underfunded and growing WAY too fast...because, lo and behold, so many people move there for those "perfect taxes". NY definitely needs to lower the tax burden for its citizens...no doubt. But (and please don't shout COMMIE when you read this) NC and I suspect may other areas of the south actually need to raise theirs some!
Why does it seem like a lot of people who post on these boards are working for the Chamber of Commerce? The taxes in the South should be higher? Come on. New York always likes to say it has the best schools to justify all the wasteful spending as though NY is creating the future leaders of America and the rest of the country is churning out illiterate, dropouts. Also why does everyone on these boards always jump to comparing to the "South" what about Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Montana. Surely these areas have a lot to offer families without the corruption. NY taxes do not need to be the way they are to have decent schools (what about the lottery cash cow?) It's just the propaganda they spit out to scare us into submission.
Why does it seem like a lot of people who post on these boards are working for the Chamber of Commerce? The taxes in the South should be higher? Come on. New York always likes to say it has the best schools to justify all the wasteful spending as though NY is creating the future leaders of America and the rest of the country is churning out illiterate, dropouts. Also why does everyone on these boards always jump to comparing to the "South" what about Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Montana. Surely these areas have a lot to offer families without the corruption. NY taxes do not need to be the way they are to have decent schools (what about the lottery cash cow?) It's just the propaganda they spit out to scare us into submission.
1. I am not in any way, shape or form trying to justify NYS's wastefull spending or high taxes
2. I was comparing COL/taxes to nc/the south because I lived there and have some insight into the situation down there. I have never lived in and therefore don't know much about Kansas, Iowa, etc;. And yes, the taxes in the NC do need to go up in order to better fund the extremely underfunded and poorly managed school systems (specifically in our case Wake County Public Schools) and overly strained infrastructure. I think many longtime residents of the area (Raleigh) would agree.
Ahh, fair enough... I could see how that would add up (but would give people more economic incentive to purchase slightly used, since new cars lose ~60% of their value in their first 5 years off the lot with ~20% of their value lost the moment they leave the lot).
This. I think every person in the congress and senate should be required to take a Dave Ramsey course.
1. Don't spend money you don't have. Don't spend more than you earn.
2. Fund your necessities first. This means that all you overpaid state workers don't get 10% annual raises when the roads and infrastructure are deteriorating because there's no money to maintain them.
3. Don't put money in places other than where it was originally intended (police using traffic tickets as a revenue generator, the thruway tolls paying for things completely unrelated to the thruway, etc).
4. Plan ahead. That bridge you built across the Hudson... ya, it's going to deteriorate and you'll need to build a new one in 50 years. It's going to cost $X to rebuild, you have to rebuild in 50 years, you need to save $X/50 per year to afford to build a new one in 50 years. It's not a 'surprise! the bridge just fell into the water, and we now have to take a loan out to pay for it, we thought it would last forever' situation 50 years down the road.
5. Put together a balanced budget. Figure out where the waste is. If I make $5000 per month, and I'm spending $10,000 per month, I have a problem. If I look at my budget and I see that I'm spending $7,000 per month eating out at 5-star restaurants, I'd better learn to cook at home before I go bankrupt. Same goes for the government.
6. Set a low, fixed amount that the candidates for state positions, like senators, governor, congressman, etc are allowed to spend on an election campaign (including the 'friends of so-and-so' type of ads). See how well the candidates are able to budget the money they're allowed to spend, see how creative they can get, and if they go over budget, they're automatically disqualified from the race.
Excellent post and the reasoning should be applied at the federal level as well. Not to mention the school systems
Why does it seem like a lot of people who post on these boards are working for the Chamber of Commerce? The taxes in the South should be higher? Come on. New York always likes to say it has the best schools to justify all the wasteful spending as though NY is creating the future leaders of America and the rest of the country is churning out illiterate, dropouts. Also why does everyone on these boards always jump to comparing to the "South" what about Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Montana. Surely these areas have a lot to offer families without the corruption. NY taxes do not need to be the way they are to have decent schools (what about the lottery cash cow?) It's just the propaganda they spit out to scare us into submission.
What about Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Iowa and Montana? I understand everything isn't for everybody, but those states have different issues than NY and some of those states also have prices in terms of housing that are higher. Denver is a good example of this.
Also, people forget what cities in NY have to offer in terms of the arts/cultural events, tourism within a state that is only 30th in size(so you can actually enjoy all of it), the location to other places, good to great schools for the most part, lower crime rates than many other major cities(the NE has the lowest crime rate of any region in the US), plenty of receration opportunities and more. Now tell me if the states mentioned can give you all of that? That's not to put them down, but I think people have to look at things besides just taxes, which everyone knows could be and need to be handled better.
Personally, I think consolidation of law enforcement, water districts and tiny school districts should be looked at with NY. We have school districts without high schools here and those districts should be consolidated with a district with a HS. Combining school districts with less than 1000 students, give or take, even with a HS, should be looked at. Those are just some examples. Just to add one more, I think places like Ithaca, that has separate city and town governments should just become one entity. There are some other places like that in terms of city/town of same name and village/town of same name that should possibly take a look at that too. Especially if they share something completely like a school district or even if they don't. In some cases, you could even have a situation with a village/town, where the viollage can be seen as the suburban city center and the more suburbanized parts of that town is viewed more as a residential area of that one community. Pittsford might be a place that would fit that bill to a T. If a town has more than one village, then you could either have the other village become an independant entity or gets dissolved within that town and becomes almost in essence another section of that overall community. East Rochester might be a village that would fit that description.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 12-04-2009 at 10:55 AM..
Yes, the Northeast has the lowest crime rate of any other region in the US: Regional Estimates - Crime in the United States 2008 (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/standard_links/regional_estimates.html - broken link) and I believe that NY State is actually a middle of the pack state in terms of crime: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_05.html (broken link) , http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html (and a more up to date version: http://os.cqpress.com/rankings/Crime...kings_2009.pdf )
Well I wrote a big, long post about this topic, and when I clicked post quick reply, I did so before logging in, so it told me to log in, but I forgot my password because I'm using IE and I usually use Firefox and all my passwords are automatically saved, so I had to reset my password and I lost the entire damn post. Long story short, run, don't walk, from New York State.
Well I wrote a big, long post about this topic, and when I clicked post quick reply, I did so before logging in, so it told me to log in, but I forgot my password because I'm using IE and I usually use Firefox and all my passwords are automatically saved, so I had to reset my password and I lost the entire damn post. Long story short, run, don't walk, from New York State.
Karma you may say but the last sentence says it all...planning on leaving; hoping it's not too late in 2 years......
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