Spitzer Does Things On His (One) Terms!

Get rid of one problem and take on another that will surely boost those sagging numbers:

New Yorkers going Christmas shopping online at Amazon.com will find an 8.375% surprise at the virtual cash register, courtesy of Governor Spitzer, who is moving aggressively to collect Internet sales taxes that have gone widely unenforced.

Under a new policy, major electronic retailers, such as Amazon.com, will be required to collect sales tax on all purchases from New York. The policy, based on a novel legal theory, could hasten the end of the Internet’s era as a duty-free marketplace if other states follow New York’s lead. With the policy, New York immediately took the lead among states that are seeking to tax online commerce.

“I’d say this puts us at the front,” one state tax official, who requested anonymity, told The New York Sun.

Having pledged not to raise taxes, Mr. Spitzer is increasingly scrounging for ways to close a projected $4.3 billion deficit next year. State officials estimate that this latest initiative, which goes into effect in December, will bring in about $100 million more each year, split between state and local government tax revenue. Statewide, the sales tax averages about 8%, although in New York City it is 8.375%.

. . .

When it comes to charging sales tax, e-retailers have been held to the same old standard that the U.S. Supreme Court set for mail-order vendors: The seller only needs to collect the tax on purchases in states where the vendor has a physical presence, such as a storefront or salesman. New York is saying that it has found a way around that obstacle to tax collection. Many e-retailers may have unwittingly lost their exemption because of the way they direct traffic to their Web sites, according to a tax memo recently released by the state’s tax department.

At issue is the “affiliate program” used by many e-retailers. Web site operators can provide a link to an e-retailer in return for a commission on any sale resulting from customers using the link. While the affiliate program may consist of little more than a non-descript advertisement on the computer screen, the tax consequences may be huge: New York state says it is the equivalent of having an instate salesperson.

“It’s just treating the affiliate the same way we would treat any other type of sales representative,” Mr. Spitzer’s budget director, Paul Francis, said in an interview.

Hizzoner Invokes F-Word In Response To Proposed Pigeon Kill

Maybe he is going to run for President after all:

Mayor Bloomberg is giving a boost to Councilman Simcha Felder’s efforts to ban people from feeding pigeons. “My recollection when I came into office, there was a ferret issue, which I very cleverly and tactfully avoided,” the mayor said yesterday, referring to Mayor Giuliani’s efforts to ban the pet rodent. “While I love animals and I love birds, we do have a lot of pigeons and they do tend to foul a lot of our areas and people would be better off not feeding the pigeons. Those that are here will find food and they just won’t grow at such a rapid rate — we’ll all probably be better off.”

Hizzoner The Beast Starver

On the one hand, they just announced another chintzy $400 rebate ($250 million a year) while on the other they want to implement draconian-sounding “hiring freezes”:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to shrinking revenues from a cooling economy, imposed a hiring freeze for all agencies yesterday and directed commissioners to devise spending reductions of 2.5 percent this fiscal year and 5 percent in the next.

It is the first time officials have resorted to a citywide plan to make cuts since October 2002, when the budget was still reeling from the aftershocks of the Sept. 11 terror attack. Since then, the city’s superheated real estate market and fat payouts on Wall Street have led to surpluses, including a record $4.4 billion in the last fiscal year, which allowed the mayor to increase spending and services while cutting taxes and offering rebates.

. . .

Commissioners are to submit their plans for budget cuts by Nov. 19, and will not be permitted to fill any positions other than those directly related to public health or safety at least until the mayor decides which cuts to make. If they find they have additional expenses, Mr. Page wrote in bold type, “you should reprioritize your existing budget.”

Although the reductions would yield an estimated $500 million for this year and $1 billion for the next, Mr. Page wrote that the numbers were targets and did not mean that final decisions had been made about how much each particular agency would need to cut.

Part Twelve Of Why Bloomberg Really Won’t Be Running For President . . .

“A hurricane is much more likely than something, a terrible tragedy like 9/11” will come in handy for the Clinton campaign should Bloomberg run for President, which is not to say that tapping into everyone’s deepest fears about Manhattan hurricanes is not a smart move:

A set of booklets designed to prepare the city’s students for a range of natural and manmade disasters is missing one obvious crisis scenario: a terrorist attack.

The Bloomberg administration is distributing 1.3 million children’s safety guides that make no mention of the attacks of September 11, 2001, or the possibility of a future terrorist attack. The city has produced a booklet for elementary school students and another for middle school and high school students.

The city’s guide for older students depicts a range of troubles on its cover, including a heat wave, power outage, hurricane, flood, fire, and explosion. “These Things Happen Here, Too,” it says. “New York, It’s Time To Get Ready.”

. . .

Speaking at P.S. 29 in Brooklyn yesterday to announce the new emergency preparedness campaign, Mayor Bloomberg said the city’s Office of Emergency Management, which worked to put out the booklets, should be preparing New Yorkers “for those things that are most likely.”

Referring to the photographs of six disaster scenarios on the pamphlet cover, Mr. Bloomberg said that all the situations are so likely that nearly all of them have happened during his time in office.

“A hurricane is much more likely than something, a terrible tragedy like 9/11,” he said. “When it really gets to be that scale, what you can count on is a bunch of dedicated people who have been training all the time, but you can’t plan for something like that.”

In case you were wondering, the last hurricane to hit the city was in 1938, and is generally considered to be a once-every-75-years occurrence, which isn’t to say that it’s not scary, just that Hizzoner is ridiculously (purposely?) tone deaf (hope that works out for you, Sheekey!).

That Was Fast . . .

Opening given, gladly taken:

Celebrating her 60th birthday last night with a fund-raiser that netted $1.5 million, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a rare shot at an old New York rival and current Republican presidential candidate, Rudolph W. Giuliani, for saying he would root for the Red Sox in the World Series.

Mr. Giuliani, a Yankees fan, has mocked Mrs. Clinton over the years for professing allegiance to the Yankees, even though she grew up a Chicago Cubs fan and recently said she would split her loyalty between those teams if they met in the World Series.

But Mrs. Clinton smiled widely last night as she got in her dig at Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor. After the Yankees lost in the first round of the playoffs this month, Mr. Giuliani said he would rally behind the archrival Red Sox — an endorsement seen in some quarters as pandering to New Hampshire primary voters in Red Sox Nation.

Addressing a packed Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mrs. Clinton noted that both she and the evening’s M.C., Billy Crystal, were devoted to the Yankees.

“I have been a fan, and I remain a fan of the New York Yankees — no changes, no looking to curry favor with anyone else,” she said to much laughter and applause from the audience of mostly New York Democrats.