Plastic bags!

Questions:

• Excluding uniformed personnel, there are 185,908 City employees, 10,000 of which you expect to leave through attrition, either to retire or work for Goldman Sachs or whatever. Will 5.4 percent of the workforce really do this in a down economy? And if so, when — by June 30, 2009? And then will there be wider layoffs?
• Comment on this point, please: “Aren’t taxes worth it, because of the valuable and equitably distributed services they pay for? No, it is clear to all. Those taxes aren’t going to services, they are going to privileges, and for burdens from the past shifted to the present and future by Generation Greed. In the end we will pay more and more and get next to nothing. Want proof? New York City’s personal service budget is proposed to rise from $34.7 billion to $36 billion, and in exchange services will be cut and the infrastructure will degrade.”
• Please square the concept of eliminating the clothing tax exemption within the city with the state’s reluctance to eliminate the same tax exemption in its executive budget
• How exactly will you save $200 million in FY 2010 with a “Tier V” pension when you’re presumably not hiring new employees?

More later . . .