Riders of a Lesser Subway

While those who make more than 150,000 per year will no doubt be toasting the mayor for cutting their city taxes from 7.88% to 6.35%, the majority of New Yorkers struggling to pay the rent will be cursing under their breath.

This is just another stick in the eye of the underclass, who always suffer from job eliminations, downsizing, tax increases, prohibitive medical insurance costs, and varying forms of exploitation ranging from credit card deals to block after block of nothing but cheap and nasty fried food.

This tax cut is where Bloomberg kisses the ass of the Republican Machine. Now he can stand up and drawl, “I cut taxes”. How, in a city where homelessness and third world conditions are anything but a secret, can there be a justification for cutting taxes? But I forget that the subway stops in the highly trafficked tourist and High Rent areas are always nice and clean and free of debris, unlike the lesser stops.

Trickle down economics hasn’t gone away – it’s been institutionalized.

Yes, many of us are riders of a Lesser Subway, those who see the same decay and filth and vomit on the platform and on the stairs, day after day, the kind of things that no one getting off at 86th Street on the west side would ever have to look at. And yet, in these "gentrified" neighborhoods where salaries of over $150,000 are common, they pay less tax, so since they pay less, why is more tax revenue spent keeping their subways clean, their streets clean, and them happier than anyone else anywhere else in the city, where personal income tax has not been cut. How many of you have to look at the same pile of vomit or shit, day after day, until a big fat rainstorm washes it away? God forbid the city should clean it up.

Hardly fair, hardly a sign that Bloomberg et al are actually embracing the Two New Yorks that Ferrer was unable to elaborate on in his recent failed campaign.

But none of this is surprising and it is certainly nothing but the same goose-step tax cut seen at the Federal Level for the richest Americans.

Happy fucking New Year

Sorry, i am thinking out loud today (en la mala leche)...

Tags:   bitching, bloomberg, subways, tax cuts, vomit

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Posted on 1/2/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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