The People's Business: Previous Shows

May 3, 2007

Jocelyn Guyer, deputy executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families (CCF) discussed the steps that New York and other states are taking to strengthen and expand children’s health coverage, and the implications of these developments for SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) reauthorization, due later this spring. For more information about Guyer's work, see CCF's recent report, Children’s Health Coverage: States Moving Forward.

Mark Greenberg, executive director of the Center for American Progress (CAP) Task Force on Poverty, spoke about the new report From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half. This report, released April 25, 2007, called for a national goal of cutting poverty in half in the next ten years and proposed a strategy for reaching that goal.

Lou Gordon of the Business and Labor Coalition of New York (BALCONY) and Rachel Rosen DeGolia of the Universal Health Care Action Network previewed BALCONY's May 10 conference on universal health care.

BALCONY is the Business and Labor Coalition of New York. Bruce Ventimiglia and Alan Lubin, who co-chair BALCONY, led off the April show with a discussion of their  goal: finding common ground on issues of importance to the state's economy. They also described BALCONY's achievements and current projects. Ventimiglia is the chief executive officer of Saratoga Capital Management and Lubin is executive vice president of New York State United Teachers.

FPI senior economist Trudi Renwick discussed the recently adopted state budget as well as some of the important domestic policy issues currently facing the U. S. Congress.

Michael Mazerov, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a state corporate tax expert, discussed the arguments being made for and against Governor Spitzer's corporate tax reform proposals.

William Ferris, the New York state legislative representative for the American Association of Retired Persons, discussed AARP's proposals dealing with prescription drug prices. Learn more about AARP's New York legislative agenda here.

Dall Forsythe, Professor of Practice at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service, was Director of the Budget under Governor Cuomo. Forsythe discussed how budgets are put together and negotiated and the historic challenges around cutting the growth in Medicaid. Forsythe is the author of Memos to the Governor: An Introduction to State Budgeting and (together with Don Boyd of the Rockefeller Institute) contributed a chapter on the changing executive-legislative balance of powers in the New York State budget process to Budgeting in the States: Institutions, Processes, and Politics.

David Gaskell, former director of the state Office of Real Property Services and now a consultant with the Hudson Group, described the problems arising from current property assessment methodologies.

Kent Gardner, president of the Center for Governmental Research, gave a preview of CGR's January 10 conference, at which fiscal and tax experts debated the reasons for our relatively high taxes and possible solutions, along with discussing the fine points of property assessment. Perhaps the strongest point of agreement was criticism of the state’s School Tax Relief program (STAR) enacted in 1997 to help overburdened property taxpayers. Full proceedings of the conference can be found here.

Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, wrapped up the show with a discussion of EPI's new Agenda for Shared Prosperity, which has taken on such topics as labor policy, immigration, globalization, and health care.

FPI Senior Economist Trudi Renwick and FPI Senior Fellow David Dyssegaard Kallick led off the show with a discussion of FPI's new report One New York: An Agenda for Shared Prosperity.

Harvey Levinson, Nassau County Assessor, described his plan for changing the basis of school funding from property taxation to income taxation. According to Levinson, "The assessed value of a home is not an indicator of a family’s ability to pay school taxes. We have to explore alternatives to providing school district funding to help families on Long Island who find themselves ‘house rich and cash poor’ and struggle to pay their property taxes.” Levinson's proposal outline has the details.

No show this month.

Martha Coven, senior legislative associate at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, discussed the recent efforts by some members of Congress to change the laws and rules governing the federal budget process. Coven also described the efforts by the Congress's Republican leadership to tie an increase in the minimum wage to a permanent reduction in the federal estate tax. Find CBPP's latest on the federal budget here.

Bob Radliff, executive director of the Capital District Community Loan Fund, and Roger Markovics, a volunteer board member of the Albany Community Land Trust, talked together about their efforts to establish and fund an Albany County Housing Trust Fund.

Phyllis Goldstein, president of the Capital Region Chapter of the Lung Cancer Alliance, wrapped up the show with the case for state funding for lung cancer research. Recent information about her work can be found here and here.

Chuck Bell, programs director at Consumers Union, outlined ideas for making prescription drugs more affordable, including: requiring that drug companies disclose the money spent on gifts to doctors, and having New York State bulk-buy its drugs and use some of the savings to create a discount drug card. More information here on CU's work around the country to make prescription drugs safe, effective and affordable.

Dean Baker, co-founder and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research spoke about his recent book, The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (a free e-book). Baker has since published The United States Since 1980 (March 2007), which chronicles the sharp right turn the United States has taken in recent decades, and he blogs on economic reporting at Beat the Press.

Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, talked about current developments in the on-going battle to secure a legitimate statewide solution to the court decisions in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s school funding lawsuit.

Richard Kirsch, executive director of Citizen Action of New York, discussed his analysis of the new Massachusetts health care plan, If Wishes Were Horses: The False Promise of the Massachusetts Health Plan.

Senator Neil Breslin, the ranking minority member of the New York State Senate's Insurance Committee, talked about his report on skyrocketing HMO profits.

Gerald Norlander, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project (PULP), discussed the recent power outages in Queens and what this experience tells us about New York State's foray into utility deregulation.

Jon Shure, executive director of New Jersey Policy Perspectives, talked about the budget impasse between New Jersey Governor John Corzine and the New Jersey legislature.

Michael Mazerov, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, went over various bills that would restrict the ability of the states to tax multi-state corporations. At the time, the bills were making their way through the House and Senate.

Dick Lavine of the Center on Public Policy Priorities discussed a major change in Texas's business tax system just signed into law by Governor Rick Perry. The new system will generate billions of dollars a year for school finance reform and property tax relief.

Dr. Liz Letzler, a professor of management at Manhattan College in Riverdale and an active member of Responsible Wealth, described the continuing efforts of the Congressional leadership to repeal or significantly reduce the federal estate tax.

Frank Mauro discussed the budget impasse that has emerged at the State Capitol, with the Legislature overriding most of the Governor's budget line item vetoes and the Governor arguing that many of the items involved are nonetheless null and void since the Legislature had added them to his appropriations bills in ways that violated provisions of the State Constitution.

US Representative Mike McNulty spoke about current federal tax and budget issues.

Frank Mauro commented on Massachusetts's new "universal" health insurance plan.

Taylor Lincoln, research director for Public Citizen, discussed a new report, Spending Millions to Save Billions: the Campaign of the Super Wealthy to Kill the Estate Tax, recently released by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy.

Richard Kogan, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described the effort by some members of the House to tie a package of changes in the federal budget process (including a type of line-item veto for the President) to the adoption of the Budget Resolution that will guide the more detailed work on the Fiscal Year 2007 budget.

US Representative Maurice Hinchey discussed current federal budget issues and their impact on New York.

Lee Farris, United for a Fair Economy's senior organizer on estate tax policy, talked about the efforts by some in Congress to repeal or further reduce the federal estate tax.

This show was devoted to an update on 2006-07 state budget negotiations.

Host Frank Mauro presented FPI's just-released budget briefing, Balancing New York State's 2006-07 Budget in an Economically Sensible Manner. For more information, visit FPI's budget briefing archives.

Mike Davoli, associate director of the Alliance for Quality Education, reviewed the education issues facing New York in the coming year. 

Dale Bryk, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, discussed global warming and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Gerald Norlander, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project, described the energy issues facing the New York State legislature as it convenes for its 2006 session.