[regional_school] City Newspaper Endorses Teachout!!!

From: Dan Drmacich <dandrmacich123@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Bolgen Vargas <bolgen.vargas@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Jose Cruz <countyleg@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Malik Evans <mightymalik@xxxxxxx>, Mary B Adams <maryb_adams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Melisza Campos <meliszacampos@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Van White <van.white@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Willa Powell <wpowell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Anthony Bottar <RegentBottar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Betty Rosa <RegentRosa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Charles Bendit <RegentBendit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Christine Cea <RegentCea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Geraldine Chapey <RegentChapey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Harry Phillips III <RegentPhillips@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, James Cottrell <RegentCottrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, James Dawson <RegentDawson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, James Jackson <RegentJackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, James Tallon <RegentTallon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Kathleen Cashin <RegentCashin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Lester Young <RegentYoung@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Merryl Tisch <RegentTisch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, NYS Regents Office <regentsoffice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Regent Brown <regentbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Robert Bennett <RegentBennett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Roger Tilles <RegentTiles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Wade Norwood <regentnorwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Lovely Warren <lovely.warren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 16:56:16 -0400

Please try to attend!

WEEK AHEAD: [UPDATED] Teachout bus to make Monroe County stop Posted By Jeremy
Moule
<http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/ArticleArchives?author=2124656>
on Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 10:46 AM
On Thursday, gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout and lieutenant
governor candidate Tim Wu will make a campaign stop in Monroe County.
They'll appear at 9:15 a.m. at Village Gate Square, 274 North Goodman
Street.

The visit is part of the Teachout-Wu campaign’s Whistleblower Bus Tour. The
candidates are making stops across the state and promise to “reveal how
Governor [Andrew] Cuomo and his campaign donors have been rigging the
system, getting special treatment, and making money at the expense of our
schools, hospitals, subways, bridges, lakes, food systems, and small
businesses,” says a press release.

Teachout is challenging Cuomo in a Democratic primary, while Wu is
challenging Cuomo’s running mate, Kathy Hochul. Teachout has made
Cuomo-backed tax cuts for corporations, banks, and wealthy New Yorkers a
central theme in her campaign. The tax cuts mean less money for investing
in schools, for municipal aid, and for infrastructure, she says.

Teachout's emerging voice By Jeremy Moule
<http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/ArticleArchives?author=2124656>
@jfmoule <http://twitter.com/jfmoule>
click to enlarge [image: PHOTO COURTESY ZEPHYRFORGOV DIGITAL MEDIA
(FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/125232993@N03) - Zephyr Teachout says that the tax cuts
backed by Governor Andrew Cuomo take money from schools, infrastructure,
and local governments. Teachout is running in a Democratic primary for
governor.]
<http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/imager/zephyr-teachout-says-that-the-tax-cuts-bac/b/original/2426829/d48f/news3-1.jpg>

- PHOTO COURTESY Zephyrforgov digital media (
flickr.com/photos/125232993@N03)
- Zephyr Teachout says that the tax cuts backed by Governor Andrew Cuomo
take money from schools, infrastructure, and local governments. Teachout is
running in a Democratic primary for governor.

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Zephyr Teachout has little chance of becoming New York's next governor.
But that hasn't stopped the Fordham University law professor from sticking
it to Governor Andrew Cuomo — her opponent in the Democratic primary. (The
primary election is Tuesday, September 9.)

Few New Yorkers would recognize Teachout on sight, and Teachout hasn't
raised the kind of money that would allow her to do an aggressive
advertising campaign. Cuomo, on the other hand, has plenty of money, name
recognition, and the support of the state's Democratic Party machine.
(Comedian and political satirist Randy Credico is also running in the
Democratic gubernatorial primary.)

But New York's progressive Democrats have longstanding complaints about
Cuomo. They say he hasn't done enough to address economic inequality in the
state. And they're particularly unhappy that Cuomo's pushed tax breaks and
cuts for corporations, big banks, and the wealthy.

Teachout has emerged as a voice for those disenchanted Democrats. She's
coming at Cuomo from the left and isn't shy about calling the governor out
on his shortcomings. It's not just the tax cuts, which have meant less
money for public schools and infrastructure, Teachout says. Cuomo's failed
to deliver on other important issues, too, such as public financing of
campaigns and a fracking ban, she says.

"He acts like he's serving his own presidential ambition or his donors, but
does not act like somebody who is serving the interests of New York,"
Teachout says.

Teachout, former director of an open government nonprofit and director of
online organizing for Howard Dean, positions herself as a crusader in the
tradition of Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She says she wants
state regulators to break up big companies and banks with too much
political and economic power. And she says she wants wealthy, corporations
and banks to pay more in taxes so that the state has more money for local
governments, schools, infrastructure, and higher education.

Teachout says that as governor, she'd push for a public campaign finance
system like New York City's, where candidates can get matching funds for
small donations. The system would lessen the influence of wealthy donors
who can write big checks, she says.

And she says she wants the state to ban fracking and invest more heavily in
renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric.

In recent interviews, Teachout talked about her campaign and some of the
issues facing New York. An edited version of those conversations follows.

*CITY: How do you effectively campaign against Cuomo, a sitting governor
with a whole political machine behind him?*

Teachout: I'm not going to try to compete on $100,000 donations. But I'll
tell you, in the last three-and-a-half weeks, 37 people contributed to his
campaign and 900 people contributed to mine. So we have people power.

We're doing community group meetings, big speeches, small meetings, and
really reaching out to primary voters to let them know that there's a
serious alternative to Andrew Cuomo — someone who believes in funding
schools, someone who believes in banning fracking, and someone who believes
that economic development policy doesn't begin and end with tax breaks.

We anticipate that this primary will have relatively low turnout: half a
million people or maybe three-quarters of a million people. So it's really
going to be a primary about Democrats who are watching closely, and those
are the ones we're focused on.

*What is driving economic inequality in New York?*

A lot of it is taking money from the schools to pay for tax breaks. Some of
it's taking money from infrastructure to pay for tax breaks. Andrew Cuomo,
he doesn't find a dollar that he doesn't think belongs as a tax break for a
big corporation or a major donor or business associate.

The tax code of the state is the moral code of the state. It shows what we
value and what we don't value. And what Andrew Cuomo has shown is he values
his donors and he values his business associates, and he values his cronies.

*For years, New York's politicians and business leaders have said that the
state needs to cut corporate taxes to compete with other states. Are they
wrong?*

New York doesn't have to engage in this race to the bottom and the evidence
bears that out. We spent over $1.6 billion last year in tax breaks for
businesses to lure them here or keep them here. That accounted for, in a
recent study, less than 1 percent of the jobs created last year. So we're
spending a lot of money with very little return. And many of those
businesses are businesses that would have been here anyway.

It's just bad economic theory and it doesn't work. It ultimately ends up
decimating the economy instead of investing in it.

People want to move to New York when they can trust that the schools are
great, that the broadband is cheap and high speed, that the infrastructure
works. Because there's a thousand other reasons to move to New York,
including the extraordinary creativity and historical leadership role it
has played in the country in progressive populist politics.

*What is the alternative?*

If we tax big banks fairly, that's an enormous source of revenue. Another
is returning the millionaire's tax to the levels it was under [Governor
David] Paterson's administration, which were much more fair.

Municipalities are limited in the resources they have because the state
isn't paying its fair share. And the reason the state isn't paying its fair
share is the top 1 percent and the big banks aren't paying their fair share.

*You've been particularly critical of Cuomo's approach toward the banking
industry. What would you do differently?*

There are different ways in which we could more fairly tax the financial
industry. One would simply be to fully reinstate the bank tax.

Probably the better way to go is to tax the banks fairly under the
corporate tax code. Currently, they're only taxed for a fraction of the
transactions they make in New York State. We could bring in billions of
dollars a year with a more fair assessment of how much of the banks'
activity actually occurs in New York State.

There's an insidious lie behind this approach, which is that the financial
industry is going to leave New York. And it's a dangerous lie because it
leads over and over again to the big banks getting special breaks while the
rest of us have to pay far more.

*How do you know that the financial industry wouldn't leave New York?*

There's the Goldman Sachs building in New Jersey. New Jersey decided to get
into the business of trying to lure the financial industry out of New York
State, and so it granted a huge subsidy to build a big tower in New Jersey.
And you can't pay a trader to go there. It's not where the activity is.

Banking has always been based in high-speed information and, quite
honestly, gossip. And there's a reason why you don't see big banks buying
buildings and the cheap land in the country and just relying on technology.
It's because the social networks around the financial industry is the heart
of it. And there is a powerful — powerful is an understatement — social
network in the financial industry in Manhattan.

*What, specifically, would you do to help small business grow in New York?*

Right now, we don't have a level playing field. The game is rigged so big
businesses are getting subsidies and tax breaks and small businesses
aren't. That's one of the most essential first steps.

Second is making sure fines aren't replacing taxes as a source of revenue.
Sometimes small businesses disproportionately bear the burden of fines. And
the fines are high not because they're commensurate to the wrong, but
because municipalities or other government agencies are trying to use them
to fill gaps in their budgets.

And then we can bust up these big companies. That's what Teddy Roosevelt
and FDR did. Some of these companies have unfair advantages just because
they are large, not because they are producing anything better.

*The governor doesn't act alone; you have the Legislature, and it's going
to do what it wants to do. So how do you get lawmakers to support your
agenda?*

First of all, we're moving toward a Democratic Senate. And certainly, with
a Democratic governor who unambiguously campaigns for Democrats, which I
would do, that will make a big difference in what's possible.

Certainly I'd find allies in the Republican Party who found that Common
Core, which I'm opposed to, should be halted.

Likewise, I think I'm going to find some agreement on the importance of
small business. Republicans have given a lot of lip service to small
business over the years, but in practice haven't supported them.

*Cuomo's critics, including you, call him a bully. But hasn't his
arm-twisting advanced important progressive issues including marriage
equality and gun control?*

I think that's true. Look, I don't think everything he's done is bad. I'm a
reasonable person. I basically don't think he's governed as a Democrat in
all these different ways. But he's pushed for things I agree with. I think
we should have college education for inmates.

I don't have a per se complaint with using strength. I have a complaint
with using strength in the service of your own political interests, instead
of the interests of the people of the state.

New York has a problem with centralized power. We have to address that as a
structural matter because time and again we've seen governors toppled by
the arrogance that comes from having had too much power. That's a repeated
pattern in this state.

I will use every tool at my disposal to get rid of the corporate capacity
to donate to campaigns and change the way the campaigns are funded. To me,
that is a core structural issue.

[regional_school] City Newspaper Endorses Teachout!!!

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