Is Geoege McDonald really Thurston Howell the Third? I have an excellent ear for voices and I could swear he soundes just like TH 3.

Amen Noah....

Does it really make sense to keep debating NYers in the $400,000 earning range while those at the top of the corporate and financial sector continue to get away with murder with such impunity?

Dboy - not sure if you remember how we got to 400k.

New Yorkers - all of us who pay taxes, pay more than most, for the crappy education system we have. And a politian comes along and says "let's raise taxes on the stinkin' rich" to make pre-k better? Maybe the amount of money already being spent, is not the problem but the way it's spent. That's what I have a problem with.

You wanna tax 400k'rs and above @90% because you don't like them, fine, but don't hide waste and inefficiency in a program with more taxes.

Speaking of $400,000 a year....

How many people know the salary of New York Public Radio President and CEO Laura R. Walker?

Whatever one thinks of it, at least NYPR doesn't hide this info; I found it quickly and easily via a Google search.

If only I could say the same for Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman...good luck finding out her salary.

Sheldon: (On the off chance you'll come back to this page)

Now that poster Bob has correctly identified the author as none other than Benjamin Franklin, do you still not get my point?

If I had time and knew you'd be back, I'd try to post some other quotes.

...when the likes of;

Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Marianne Moore, Maya Angelou, Rod McKuen, Dylan Thomas, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, Anita O'Day, Charlie Parker, Les Paul, Mary Ford, Paul Robeson, Kay Starr, Art Tatum, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Josh White, Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Barbra Streisand, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bette Midler, The Lovin' Spoonful, Simon & Garfunkel, Liza Minnelli, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Eric Andersen, Joan Baez, The Velvet Underground, The Kingston Trio, Carly Simon, Richie Havens, Maria Muldaur, Tom Paxton, Janis Ian, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Nina Simone, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham, Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis, Andy Warhol and Lou Reed, Philip Glass...

Are replaced with corrupt paper shufflers.

Here is a very sad and sobering fact:

I am part of a group of folks in arts education; music, art, design, architecture etc.

For years, the thinking amongst kids is to get out of NYC as soon as possible or choose to start your education/career elsewhere, all together. The secondary and tertiary cities are far more affordable and supportive of young people looking to create. NYC is looked at as a place to come to AFTER/IF you've made it. As observed here, I'm guessing that means $400,000/yr.

What does THAT do to the culture of a city??

Best of luck to you Bob, it was a pleasure.

Dboy - because this city takes care of its very very rich and to a certain extent its very very poor - the rest of us get screwed.

Screw these takers.

@ Noach - My guess was Thomas Paine, but really had not idea. I looked it up: Ben Franklin

@ dboy - Right On.

@ Sheldon - You fail. Go bye-bye

It doesn't take much to understand something is seriously wrong when six figures is not enough.

Particularly in a city where the per capita income is $59,000 and $400,000 is still NOT enough!!??

and what's your point Noah?

$10,000* to the first person who names who the author of the following quote is. (No cheating--The Google trackers are watching...)

__________Begin quoted text________

All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

_______End quoted text__________

*Ersatz confederate notes. Void where prohibited.

Bob from Brooklyn~

Thank you for saving me the keystrokes.

None of us regular folk, <$400,000/yr can afford to live here because the so-called "trickle" down, does NOT.

The wealthy world flocks here to soak up the rich cultural air, including foreigners who drive up real estate prices and don't even LIVE here full time! They contribute NOTHING to this culture. They create or produce NOTHING. They shuffle paper, dodge taxes and mastermind economic collapse.

Meanwhile none of us who are responsible for creating this "cultural experience"; the musicians, the immigrants, the artists, teachers, the small restaurant owners, academics etc. etc. CAN NOT AFFORD TO LIVE HERE!! This despite having been here LONG before the RICH decided it was "cool"!!

It does NOT "trickle down"!!

...the sooner the better.

@Noach - I was there 20 years ago, aimlessly fetishizing the working class. If you want to borrow any of my Marxist treatises on the theory of wage labour, please let me know. There are in storage somewhere.

Bob - so you are saying that people making 400k a year, are "rich"?

I don't believe in trickle down economics, I don't have a problem with the rich, the truly rich in this city, paying more taxes. There are a lot of people and corporations in this city, making over a million a year, to go after, why start at 400,000?

Sierra Leone, like many developing countries, have such a wealth gap - because they do NOT have a viable middle class, or petit bourgeoisie as you call them.

Sheldon from Brooklyn wrote,
<<the petite bourgeois (which Lenin, Trotsky, and Engels were part of BTW)is the glue that holds modern society together.>>

Where would the 1% be without the labor of the 99%?

Sheldon - I'm referring to your attitude. I'm sure many people on this site are part of that class, but don't subscribe to the classwide assumption that what's good for the rich are good for them, especially when those assumptions and points of view keep other classes of people in poverty. Keep on living in your trickle down world.

This city is supposedly the engine of modern American capitalism, and we have a 20% poverty rate. The gulf between rich and poor in this city is about the same as Sierra Leone. Where else will the money come from if not from people with the means to pay higher taxes?

Rich capitalist want to be here. That's why rents are too damn high.

@thatgirl, people of more modest means, I amongst them - have even more dire issues. Again, I don't feel sorry for these people but for Bill DeBlasio to say that he is going to levy a $10,000 tax on people making 400k without seeing if there is money already being wasted in the current budget on pre-K, is downright irresposible.

Sheldon - Don't people of more modest means have the same issues (minus the mortgage - cry me a river!)? Those making $400K and above have gamed the system to put their children in the G&T programs of public schools, raising "additional" private funding to, effectively, turn them into hybrid private schools, supported by taxpayers. They enjoy tax avoidance the average person doesn't via investments, whether they fail or thrive. So most of us don't buy that $10K (max) of additional tax will chase them to Westchester--they have it too good here!

@Bob - the petite bourgeois (which Lenin, Trotsky, and Engels were part of BTW)is the glue that holds modern society together. As the son of two proletariats, it's a hard thing to say but it's the truth.

petit bourgeois @ Sheldon from Brooklyn.

"The sooner the rich flee this city, the better off we will all be!"

Dboy - you usually make sense, the above quote is sadly, does not help.

Today is a sad day for NY for we have lost ex mayor Ed Koch.
Ed koch distinguish himself because he cared for the ppl of NY, i remember in the 80s he gave me two awards for art one which my school was part of.
We will all miss Ed Koch.
If Mr George McDonald would actually know the 21st century problems NY faces than he might want to know that drugs are a big problem to be solved immediately.
Why is it that a major part of the population contribute to crime by sponsoring all these drug dealers with money in return for say grass.
Marihuana should be legalized in a clever way, and should be part of a tax system for NY. We should open shop and regulate and register any person that wants to buy, their should be an age discretion, and it would be as if you are buying an hiv test kit, simple and effective, but the devils won't allow because in their plan we should be constrain to one size fits all criteria and we will never progress..our money is not favorable to a good and comprehensive transaction but its discriminated by an old superstition...

Dboy - it's not chump change and I'm not going to lose sleep over people that make that amount but 400k - after the feds, state and city gets their share, you're left with around 300K - you have two kids in school, aging parents and a mortgage to pay for. Again, I'm not going to feel sorry for 400k earners but they aren't necessarily rich. There are enough true millionaires in this city to go after.

What Mr. McDonald is talking about is replacing state paternalism for some mythical capitalistic paternalism. A job. A job doing what?
America has narrowed it’s economy to a point where even the young and highly educated can’t find a job. We have an Ad hoc economy with no consensus. Capital works against government, government become impotent, labor has no voice.
An economy that seems to fly on the seat of it’s pants may be not be able to compete in a global market where nations, China, Germany, have some measure of forward looking planning. So, jobs doing what?

The sooner the rich flee this city, the better off we will all be!

Next time please ask George McDonald about his John Doe workers:

1. What if they didn't get arrested in the first place? (inequalities in drug prosecutions, for example)

2. Why doesn't he work hard to restore the workers' voting rights (I spoke to some John Doe workers who seemed terribly depressed about not having the right to vote any more)

3. Why did he chose the dirtiest jobs? Why not teach them to have their own businesses making solar electricity kits?

Also please ask him about how rich is rich enough in NYC. He said there won't be any more rich people if we tax them too much. Any proof? And aren't some of New York's most stable and well-functioning neighborhoods those where incomes are more evenly distributed?

I hope that we can get past George McDonald's own public relations spin.
Thanks.

There is not a shred of evidence that suggests raising taxes on the rich results in them leaving the city. None.

...good for you sheldon.

On crime, it wasn't straight from Koch to Giuliani--people forget that crime in NYC started to decline during Dinkins' term, & that it was Dinkins, not Giuliani, who instituted community policing.

$400K "isn't a lot?" Good luck with that.

Clueless.

Pay the rent with what???

According to the NY Times the average rent in NYC is $3418!!!

Minimum wage in NYC is $7.25/hr or $1160 PER MONTH BEFORE TAXES!!

OUT OF TOUCH A*SH*LE!!

dboy - I hate to tell you but $400,000 in NYC, is NOT a lot of money.

Please address:
1.) What about the cycle of welfare dependency...for CORPORATIONS?! All the bailouts, tax breaks, and other advantages.

2.) Drug policy.

It's not a criticism of homeless/unemployed people--it's a criticism of the economic system!

A tax on those earning more than $ 400,000 is said to result in a mass exodus of the wealthy out of NYC.

Bill deBlasio has asserted that his plan would result in an additional $ 2000 tax bill for these residents.

I say raise that to $ 10,000 and raise 5 x as much.

Does anyone really believe that someone making over $ 400,000 per year is going to leave NYC over $ 10,000>

I think this is an assertion without evidence, and is based on unfounded fears.

So ask him where the tens of million$ raised for Sandy sufferers, donated to the Doe Fund, have gone! Apparently, it hasn't been distributed very well.

If liberals, who fight for the rights of the poor, "look down" on the poor as you have said, then how do you, who wish to snatch the support right out from under them, view the poor? Your coded language is really opaque and I think the average NY'er, no matter how hard hearted, can hear it.

Jobs = taxable wage slaves.

Big on philosophy and short on details. Same thing that killed the republican ticket in November. This discussion sounds as if it were done a year ago.

Please ask Mr. McDonald about his views on education, specifically about changing the dynamics of the discussion on education "reform" away from standardized testing, charter schools, and bashing teachers, to one of embracing and sharing Best Practices.

This guy sounds like the guy from Crains; Greg David...
400k is not a lot...

Ask if he'll demand the wall st corporations pay taxes they owe for all those jobs that never materialized...

Good Lord, another business-at-all-costs mayoral candidate. This is the slicker package of Catsimatidis. Ugh.

Yes, this guy is blaming the homeless for being homeless, because he doesn't understand how they become homeless. Just like he doesn't understand how those generations of ex-convicts came to be. This understanding is often missing in policy and is not socialized in society, and this is very operative in th eongoing problem. We don't need types like McDonald perpetuating it.

If the rich are fleeing New York en masse, then why is it still so expensive to rent or buy in New York?

$400,000/yr is NOT a a LOT of money???

Who is this clown??

Here we have just another textbook republican.

How do felons get jobs or money? How are they suppose to get decent employment inside the system if the system is clearly against them?

I love the Doe Fund!

Hi Brian,

Please ask the candidate how the Stop and Frisk and the skyrocketing arrests for noncriminal drug possessions has adversely affected the men and women the Doe Fund attempts to help reintegrated into society. Will he continue this NYPD tactic if he becomes mayor? And does Mr George McDonald believe the police unions/societies have too much lobbying power in Albany?

Thank you