Investors shuffling assets ahead of fiscal cliff

Some citizens aren’t waiting to find out if the White House and Republicans in Congress will be able to reach a last-minute deal to pull the country away from the “fiscal cliff.”

They are selling securities while capital gains tax rates are still low or transferring millions into trusts for the benefit of children and grandchildren before estate tax laws become more stringent. Others are getting out of the markets and parking money in less risky accounts.

Miami financial planner Cathy Pareta has been counseling her upper middle class clients — “the Johnsons, not the Rockefellers” — on whether to adjust investment portfolios, accelerate income or realize capital gains sooner than planned.

“Some people are going to get hit hard,” said John Bacci, a financial planner in Linthicum, Md., who has gone down his client list and run projections on what higher taxes would look like for them. He’s looking at tax-friendly alternatives for some clients, such as annuities or rental property.

At year’s end, the country will leap off the “fiscal cliff” unless politicians reach a compromise on mandated spending cuts and the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.

For most investors, the expiring cuts will mean that the tax rate for long-term capital gains will rise from 15 percent to 20 percent. Dividends also will no longer be taxed at 15 percent but treated as ordinary income, which could mean a tax rate as high as 39.6 percent. And individuals with multimillion-dollar estates will find much more of their money subject to the federal estate tax.

Estate planning lawyers say the demand is so intense that they are putting in grueling hours to set up trusts.

“It’s very stressful. We are working day and night,” said Diana Zeydel, an estate planning lawyer with Greenberg Traurig in Miami. “Were doing three times what we normally do for end-of-the-year planning.”

Zeydel said many of her clients waited until after the elections in November to gauge how the political tide would affect their future finances. This gave them little more than a month to make major decisions about their wealth.

Most observing the political jousting in Washington expect taxes will go up even if the political leaders reach a deal — they’re just not sure how much. Many aren’t taking any chances.

Jim Ludwick, a financial planner in Odenton, Md., said one client in his late 50s cashed out stock and bond funds totaling $1.7 million not long after the election and stashed the proceeds in a money market fund.

The client, anticipating a market plunge due to the “fiscal cliff” and other issues, said he spent his entire working life building up a nest egg and wouldn’t have time to wait for his portfolio to recover, according to Ludwick. The client fears it won’t be safe to re-enter the stock market for another year.

“We have a number of clients who are taking capital gains this year, expecting that if they wait until next year, they will have to pay higher taxes on those same gains,” said Daniel McHugh, president of Lombard Securities in Baltimore. Some of those clients are realizing six-figure gains but are still willing to take the tax hit now, he said.

Of course, the downside is that the stock market could take off, and these investors will miss out on even higher gains, McHugh said. But, he added: “Given the state the economy is in, that’s a very small risk.”

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Teen charged in bus shooting remains on house arrest

When 20 school children were shot and killed in Newtown, Conn. last Friday morning, few people in South Florida felt the pain as deeply in her heart as Ady Guzman-DeJesus.

Exactly a month ago, Guzman-DeJesus, just like many of the Connecticut parents, sent her daughter off to school. And hours, later, her daughter, 13, was fatally shot by a young man wielding a gun that had been stored in his mother’s Homestead home.

“I was in the car when I heard about the shootings on the radio,” Guzman-DeJesus recalled. “Everything just came back to me. I began crying and shaking so badly that my friend had to come and help me out of my car.’’

Guzman-DeJesus said she posted some condolences on Sandy Hook Elementary school’s Facebook page.

“I just wanted to tell them that I knew how they felt,’’ she said.

Guzman-DeJesus, in Miami-Dade court Thursday, wept at the memory, as prosecutors agreed to allow her daughter’s shooter, 15-year-old Jordyn Alexander Howe, to be released from juvenile detention where he had been held since the Nov. 20 killing. Howe, who did not appear in court, was ordered to remain on house arrest, monitored by an ankle device, pending his next hearing set for Jan. 23.

Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus, whose nickname was “Jina,” was killed when Howe packed a .40-caliber pistol in his backpack and took it out on the school bus transporting kids to three charter schools in Southwest Miami-Dade. The gun went off, striking Lourdes in the neck. Howe, a student at Somerset Academy Silver Palms, faces charges of manslaughter and carrying a concealed weapon.

The incident happened as the bus was driving children near SW 296 Street and SW 137 Avenue in Homestead. Lourdes, a student at Palm Glades Preparatory Academy, was shot in front of her 7-year-old sister. About seven other students were on the bus when the gun went off, police said.

Prosecutors on Thursday asked the judge for 30 additional days to decide whether to charge Howe as an adult. Judge Richard Hersch agreed to the extension, warning Howe’s public defender that if the teen violated the terms of his release, he would be taken into custody.

Miami-Dade police detectives continue their investigation. After the shooting, they said it appeared that Howe had taken the gun from his parents’ closet and had brought it to school at least once before. The day of the shooting, he was on the bus, showing the gun to another student when it suddenly discharged. Thus far, no charges have been brought against his parents.

Under Florida’s Child Access Prevention Law, it is a felony for a gun owner to leave a firearm where a child can access it, brandish it in public or use it to harm another person.

Gun law expert Jon Gutmacher said that by the time a child is 15, however, they are old enough to know not to bring a gun to school.

“It’s obviously a tragedy. You have a child who takes possession of a highly dangerous instrument. He knows he’s committing a crime and knows it at that age. A weapon doesn’t fire itself. It’s a .40-caliber semi-automatic… and it takes somebody to pull the trigger,’’ said Gutmacher, an NRA firearms trainer and attorney.

However, sources close to the case said Howe had a younger sibling in the home. Gutmacher said if there is a child under the age of 12 in the home, parents should have had the gun locked in a safe.

Howe’s family thus far have declined comment on the case. The gun allegedly was owned by Howe’s stepfather.

“This gun was not in a secure place, there is a younger child in that house, and the parents had the responsibility to keep that gun locked up,’’ said DeJesus family spokesman Ron Book, a lobbyist and child-safety advocate.

“A lot of people are talking around the country today about added laws that ought to be passed,’’ he said.

“But we’ve got laws in place that should have protected this parent and her children and we expect justice to be done and for him to be charged as an adult.’’

Ady Guzman-DeJesus said she believes that God will guide investigators to do the right thing. But, she said, she believes the boy who killed her daughter should be punished.

“He just has to pay,’’ she said.

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Daniel Inouye, 1924-2012

The US declared martial law in Hawaii in 1941 and began interning Japanese-Americans the year after, but that did not deter Daniel Inouye from enlisting in the US Army at the age of 18 in 1943.

Inouye, who died Monday at 88, spent seven decades in service to his country in the Army and in Congress, where he lay in state yesterday, a rare honor even for a man with so long a career in Washington.

Inouye represented Hawaii before it was a state, becoming a member of its territorial legislature in 1954. He was elected Hawaii’s first congressman when it joined the union in 1959 and was a senator from 1963 until his passing this week.

AP

Daniel Inouye

But well before that, in the Army’s 442nd Infantry Regiment, an all-Japanese-American fighting unit, he distinguished himself with an astonishing act of bravery.

In April 1945, then-2nd Lt. Inouye led his platoon in an assault on three German machine gun nests along a ridge near San Terenzo, Italy. Shot in the stomach, he ignored his wounds, destroying two bunkers with grenades.

As he approached the last German bunker, his right arm was nearly blown off by the enemy. But he then destroyed the last German gun, also with a grenade.

In 2000, President Clinton awarded Inouye the Medal of Honor for “his gallant, aggressive tactics and . . . indomitable leadership” that earned him laurels and cost him an arm, which was later amputated.

Sen. Inouye was a man rough in war and gentle in peace, who never refused his country’s call to duty. RIP.

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John Fumagalli succeeds Sheldon Anderson at Northern Trust Florida

Northern Trust has named John Fumagalli President of Northern Trust in Florida. Fumagalli succeeds well-known banker Sheldon Anderson, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

A Northern Trust veteran, Fumagalli joined Northern Trust in Chicago in 1989. In the years since he was served as President and CEO of Northern Trust in Missouri, President and CEO for the Southwest Florida region and regional head of West Florida. In his new position, he oversees Northern Trust’s 22 offices across the state.

Anderson, who has served as Chairman and CEO of Northern Trust’s Southeast Region since 2009, will retire on December 31, 2012. He will continue in a new capacity as Chairman of Northern Trust’s Florida Advisory Board.

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Ex-cellmate: Graham told me she killed Rilya Wilson

A career criminal with more than two dozen convictions and just as many aliases told jurors Wednesday that Geralyn Graham confessed to the murder of 4-year-old Rilya Wilson when the two women shared a jail cell in August 2004.

Robin Lunceford, a 50-year-old convict with a gift for eliciting jailhouse confessions and a penchant for prison escapes, told jurors that Graham admitted to the crime while the pair sat in a courthouse holding cell moments after Graham learned that Miami-Dade prosecutors had charged her with kidnapping and child abuse in the disappearance of Rilya, a foster child in Graham’s care. At the time, Graham was already facing welfare-fraud charges.

Based largely on Lunceford’s testimony, Graham now faces a murder charge, though Rilya’s body has never been found.

“She said she smothered it with a pillow,” Lunceford told the jury Wednesday. Lunceford said Graham repeatedly referred to the child as “it.”

“She said that Rilya was evil and a demon,” Lunceford testified. She said Graham told her the 4-year-old had “mental problems.”

Lunceford said she had “flirted” with Graham in jail and gained her trust. “She asked me, if I was her friend, would I please not judge her.”

Lunceford also testified that Graham told her she buried Rilya near a body of water, but Graham did not give precise details. “She said she wasn’t stupid: ‘No body, no murder,’ ” Lunceford said.

Prosecutors believe Rilya was killed around Christmas 2000. However, welfare workers with the Department of Children and Families did not realize that Rilya was missing until around April 2002 — a scandal that rocked the agency.

Lunceford agreed to testify as part of an agreement with prosecutors reducing her life sentence in an armed robbery case to 10 years; she will now be eligible for release no later than 2014. Graham’s lawyers are expected to attack Lunceford’s credibility Thursday by highlighting the sentencing deal — and Lunceford’s repeated attempts to testify in other trials.

In 2005, while awaiting trial on the robbery charge, Lunceford offered to testify against three other murder defendants who also allegedly confessed to her while in jail or prison. She also claimed to have information about a murder plot against a federal prosecutor. Prosecutors declined to use Lunceford as a witness in those cases.

Prosecutors on Wednesday sought to portray Lunceford as a reluctant snitch. For several years, she refused to cooperate with the prosecutors handling the Rilya Wilson case, repeatedly telling prosecutors to “f--- off,” Lunceford testified.

When prosecutors finally agreed in March 2011 to reduce her life sentence, Lunceford said as part of the deal she “couldn’t cuss you people out anymore.”

Under questioning from Assistant State Attorney Josh Weintraub, Lunceford said she had received no plea-bargain offers prior to the 2011 sentencing deal. However, in 2005, Lunceford’s lawyer at the time, the late Ellis Rubin, told reporters that Lunceford had rejected a 20-year plea offer from prosecutors before she pleaded guilty to the robbery charge.

Defense lawyer Michael Matters dragged Lunceford through her history of felony convictions and phony names — a criminal record so lengthy that Lunceford admitted she can’t keep track of it. “I had a lot of convictions,” Lunceford said. “I don’t sit around counting them.”

Matters noted that Lunceford has been convicted of 26 felonies in Florida, Illinois and Nevada — including convictions for three prison escapes. But jurors will not be allowed to hear details of those convictions.

To show the credibility of Lunceford’s testimony, prosecutors noted that Lunceford also wrote down her recollections of her conversation with Graham after returning to her regular cell after hearing Graham’s confession. Prosecutors showed jurors copies of the papers Lunceford drafted, which Lunceford shared with a homicide detective only a few days after her encounter with Graham.

Lunceford testified that Graham shared details of her problems controlling Rilya and said Graham complained that Rilya climbed on the refrigerator and sometimes spread feces on the floor — complaints echoed by other witnesses in the trial. Lunceford also said Graham told her that she borrowed a dog cage from a friend to prevent Rilya from climbing at night.

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Kodak in $525 million patent deal, eyes bankruptcy end

(Reuters) – Eastman Kodak Co agreed to sell its digital imaging patents for about $ 525 million, a key step to bringing the photography pioneer out of bankruptcy in the first half of 2013.

The deal for the 1,100 patents allows Kodak to fulfill a condition for securing $ 830 million in financing.

The patent deal was reached with a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp, and which includes some of the world’s biggest technology companies, which will license or acquire the patents.

Those companies are Adobe Systems Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Fujifilm, Google Inc, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Microsoft Corp, Research In Motion Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Shutterfly Inc, according to court documents.

Kodak still must sell its personalized and document-imaging businesses as part of the financing package, and also has to resolve its UK pension obligation.

Kodak said the patent deal puts it on a path to emerge from Chapter 11 in the first half of 2013.

“Our progress has accelerated over the past several weeks as we prepare to emerge as a strong, sustainable company,” said Antonio Perez, chairman and chief executive of the Rochester, New York-based company.

The patent portfolio was expected to be a major asset for Kodak when it filed for bankruptcy in January. An outside firm had estimated the patents could be worth as much as $ 2.6 billion.

Kodak’s patents hit the market as intellectual property values have soared and technology companies have plowed money into patent-related litigation.

For example, last year Nortel Networks sold 6,000 wireless patents in a bankruptcy auction for $ 4.5 billion and earlier this year Google spent $ 12.5 billion for patent-rich Motorola Mobility.

But Kodak’s patent auction dragged on beyond the initial expectation that it would be wrapped up in August. One patent specialist blamed those early, overly optimistic valuations, which he said encouraged Kodak’s team to set their sights too high.

“Unfortunately (Kodak management) was misled into thinking it was worth billions of dollars and it wasn’t,” said Alex Poltorak, chairman of General Patent Corp, a patent licensing firm. “I think they sold them at a very good price.”

He said after Google acquired Motorola, the search engine company no longer needed patents at any price, deflating the intellectual property market.

Kodak traces its roots to the 19th century and invented the handheld camera. But it has been unable to successfully shift to digital imaging.

It will likely be a different company when it exits bankruptcy, out of the consumer business and focused instead on providing products and services to the commercial imaging market.

The patent sale is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

The Kodak bankruptcy case is in Re: Eastman Kodak Co. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-10202.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Nick Zieminski,; John Wallace and Peter Galloway)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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A safer, gun-free NYC: Mike’s crime crusade

The Issue: Mayor Bloomberg’s call for stronger gun-control laws, following the Sandy Hook shooting.

***

If Mayor Bloomberg wants to continue his crusade on guns, then he should lead by example (“Mike Blasts Bam for Doing Zilch on Guns,” Dec. 17).

He should get rid of all of his armed police bodyguards. Then he should walk the streets of New York.

How dare he tell me and other citizens we can’t protect our families and loved ones.

Frank J. Mirande

Coeymans

Bloomberg, a longtime strict national gun-control advocate, has called on President Obama to make gun control the nation’s highest agenda in the wake of the Connecticut shooting.

Mayor Bloomberg

He is a billionaire whose family enjoys the protection of an armed police security detail.

Bloomberg wants to start a war on guns, when our war on drugs has been a complete and utter failure.

If we took the resources and money from drug prohibition and utilized them for mental-health reform, we would have a much better chance in reducing violence across America.

When will we learn that prohibition only creates more crime and violence? Eric Cappelli

Ridge

We all know that the emperor knows best, but Bloomberg should stop grandstanding so soon after the slaughter of innocents. He should stop, pray and reflect.

Then, as a country, we must decide what should be done. He is emperor of New York City, not the world.Larry Millus

Succasunna, NJ

The Constitution gives our citizens the right to bear arms. Protecting ourselves is the solution. Had even one of the ladies in the front office at Sandy Hook exercised her right to protect herself and be armed, many lives could have been saved.

If you choose not to protect yourself, that is your choice. But I choose to do so.

Bloomberg may speak for New York, but he speaks for no one else in America. He is as relevant to me as the governors of California, Connecticut, New Hampshire or Illinois.

Mary Snyder-Nava

Hachita, New Mexico

Bloomberg said these mass killings are happening with increasing frequency and only in America.

He should know that this is a global problem, having as much to do with mental health as access to deadly weapons.

The same day as Sandy Hook, a man walked into an elementary school and stabbed 22 kids in the Chinese city of Chengping.

In 2011, a young man in Norway set off a bomb in Oslo, killing eight, then boarded a ferry to a small island and slaughtered 69 teenagers with an assault rife.

It would be great to get assault rifles off the street, but the emphasis needs to be on strengthening mental-health diagnosis and treatment.

The perpetrators of these mass killings had issues that were obvious to those around them.

Tom Sullivan

Union City, NJ

Bloomberg wants to ban guns, and is using this tragedy to tell Obama so.

Guns already are strictly regulated in New York City. Many out-of-staters manage to get themselves arrested in New York City for carrying a gun that they are legally permitted to do in their home states.

Will Bloomberg give up his own armed security detail when he goes out in public?

Since mental health seems to be a common denominator in recent mass shootings, and Bloomberg seems to have fallen off his rocker, perhaps it’s time he goes in for a mental-health evaluation.

Hugh E. McGee

Williamsport, Pa.

To my knowledge, it’s illegal to buy cocaine in every state, yet one can still buy as much as he wants in many parts of the mayor’s own city.

Does Bloomberg really think more anti-gun laws are going to fix the problem, or is he using the tragedy in Sandy Hook to further his own agenda?

How about spending more time on the mental-illness epidemic and less time worrying about what people are eating and drinking?

Leonard Johnson

Berkshire

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Accelerator planned for healthcare-tech start-ups

A new start-up accelerator focused on the intersection of healthcare and technology is coming to Miami next year.

Project Lift Miami, designed to help develop young companies and prepare them for investment opportunities, is a partnership between Lift1428, an innovation design, strategy and communications firm; the Miami Innovation Center at the University of Miami Life Science & Technology Park and its developer, Wexford Science + Technology; and the UM Miller School of Medicine, said Robert Chavez, the project’s executive director. “We’re being proactive and trying to support innovative ideas and companies. … We’d like to keep them here and really help to transform the area into a healthcare innovation hub.”

The accelerator will offer entrepreneurial teams a structured 100-day program of classes, workshops and training directed by national and local healthcare experts as well as mentoring and strategic support that will continue well beyond the program, said David McDonald, CEO of Lift1428 and co-founder of Project Lift Miami.

“This meets a critical unmet need in innovation,” said Norma Kenyon, chief innovation officer at UM’s Miller School, explaining that novel ideas often don’t find appropriate mentors and funding until they are pretty far along. “Where do you go if you have a great idea that really could be transformative? This provides much-needed support for these very early-stage technologies.”

Ten to 15 start-ups will be selected for the first class, which will start in May. Each will be offered seed funding — probably $20,000 to $30,000 in cash and services in exchange for a small equity stake — and will get free office space at the research park, Chavez said. The program will run through August, closing with a Demo Day, when entrepreneurs present their businesses to potential investors.

“There’s so much regulation and there are privacy issues and other barriers to entry that are different in the healthcare industry. Having the access to the environment we have here to test your idea and prove your concept is a great advance,” said Chavez, who is also executive director of business intelligence at UM’s Miller School. “That kind of mentoring you won’t get at a general accelerator.”

If Miami’s program goes well, future Project Lift programs could be rolled out at other Wexford science and technology parks across the country, said Bill Hunter, Wexford’s regional director of leasing. “Project Lift is directly aligned with our mission to cultivate innovation in our community. You need investment in those early-stage opportunities.”

Entrepreneurs interested in applying for the inaugural 2013 class can contact Chavez at rchavez@lift1428.com or 305-345-8670, or stop by the Miami Innovation Center at the UM Life Science & Technology Park, 1951 NW Seventh Ave., Suite 300. There is also more information at www.lift1428.com/projectlift.

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Judge admonishes defendant in Rilya Wilson murder trial

A Miami-Dade judge admonished the woman accused of killing foster child Rilya Wilson after two brief courtroom outbursts Tuesday.

At the time, Geralyn Graham’s ex-lover, Pamela Graham, was on the stand testifying under cross-examination about why she was cooperating with authorities. The two are not related.

In front of the jury, Geralyn Graham yelled at Pamela Graham to stop lying. A few minutes later, Geralyn Graham again blurted out at the witness that the last time she saw Rilya, she “was in your arms.”

Geralyn Graham, 66, is on trial on charges of murdering the foster child whose disappearance a decade ago roiled the state’s child-welfare agency and led to a series of reforms. Rilya’s body was never found.

Pamela Graham, who was Rilya’s legal guardian, has testified over two days that Geralyn Graham abused Rilya, tying her to a bed and keeping her isolated in a laundry room. She has also cast Geralyn Graham as a dominating, manipulative woman who forced her to lie that a child welfare worker took the child.

During cross-examination by defense attorney Scott Sakin, Pamela Graham admitted the early story she gave to police investigators “was all lies.”

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Transformation, not

E.J. McMahon

By the time they near the end of their second year in office, it’s not unusual for first-term governors to shift their focus from tackling problems to taking bows — and Gov. Cuomo certainly has been no exception.

Buoyed by record-high poll ratings, Cuomo is crediting himself with nothing less than a transformation of New York — and legislative leaders are happy to echo the claim.

But the State Budget Crisis Task Force yesterday presented a report detailing just how much remains to be done to put New York on a financially sustainable footing. It duly recognized that Cuomo has made significant strides in both reducing and capping state spending in the short term — while also noting the persistence of more deeply seated, long-term problems.

Reuters

Like father, like son? New York’s longterm finances are as perilous today under Gov. Andrew Cuomo (c.) as they were under Gov. Mario Cuomo (l.).

For example:

* New York’s state government “has had a structural deficit, papered over with gimmicks, for decades.”

* The state has been deferring a chunk of its annual pension contribution, effectively borrowing hundreds of millions from its pension fund.

* It faces “staggering” infrastructure expenses that far outstrip its current capital resources.

* It’s very deeply into debt, having regularly sidestepped a constitutional requirement for voter approval of bond issues.

* And, thanks to its extremely heavy reliance on federal Medicaid reimbursements and taxes generated by the wealthy, New York could be clobbered by an impending deficit-reduction deal in Washington.

This isn’t exactly news to Albany watchers — in fact, with a few details altered, many of the same findings could have been issued 25 years ago, when Mario Cuomo was governor. Still, the Task Force provided a sobering and realistic frame for the challenging fiscal issues with which Andrew Cuomo still must grapple.

Headed by former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the privately organized, privately funded task force has looked at the finances of six major states. In terms of fiscal messes, the Empire State essentially ranked in the middle of the pack — in better shape than California, Illinois and New Jersey, but not nearly as solid as low-cost Texas or fiscally prudent Virginia.

The task force emphasized the deterioration of county, municipal and school-district finances around the state — pointing out that “fiscal stress runs downhill” and “local governments are badly strained in New York.”

In the case of our schools, the nation’s highest-spending, the governor has (to his credit) now capped state aid while also capping local property taxes. This, the task force said, “puts school districts on notice that they will have to control costs” — costs dominated by employees’ salaries and benefits, which in turn are driven by collective bargaining and personnel rules set in Albany.

Yet Cuomo has ignored the clamor among school districts for relief from state laws such as the Triborough Amendment, which locks in automatic pay hikes for teachers in the absence of a contract. In fact, just hours after the task force issued its report in Manhattan, a state Mandate Relief Council dominated by gubernatorial appointees met in Albany — and refused to classify Triborough or other aspects of employee compensation as cost-driving “mandates” at all.

Meanwhile, the task force also warned — in effect, if indirectly — that state tax policy is on the wrong track.

One year ago, Cuomo was celebrating a special-session deal with the Legislature to temporarily extend a nearly 30 percent personal-income tax hike for individuals earning at least $1 million. Just last week, the governor finally got around to appointing a promised “tax fairness” commission, which could set the stage for making that increase permanent.

In reality, as the task force put it, “Albany has increased [its] dependence on a small group of very wealthy taxpayers to keep the state going, which worsens revenue volatility and budget instability and heightens the state’s exposure to risks outside its control.” Those risks include a federal deficit-reduction deal that is likely to combine higher rates with tight new limits on state and local tax deductions for the very same wealthy households that now pay a hugely disproportionate share of New York’s taxes.

Fittingly enough, the Ravitch-Volker task force unveiled its findings in an Upper East Side townhouse that was once the New York City home of Franklin Roosevelt. Here in the cradle of the New Deal, the cost of state and local government clearly has far outrun the ability and the willingness of New Yorkers to fully pay for it.

If Cuomo can even begin to make these problems disappear, he’ll have accomplished a real transformation.

E.J. McMahon is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy.

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