I hope to start a discussion about tax policy on the local level--county and city/town/village. My first few posts concerned this topic, and I think it should get more play. After all, "all politics is local [attributed Thomas O'Neill, Sr., Tip O'Neill's father]."

I have been teaching a course on tax ethics (no giggling, please), to graduate students for a few years now. One unit deals with how a professional's public expounding of any particular tax policy impacts his or her ethical requirements to the client. While thinking about this topic, I distilled tax policy to this formula--not particularly insightful, but nevertheless ignored by many politicians:

Public Expenditures = revenue + deficit.

I review some elementary algebra, to the effect that one equation with three variables has an infinite number of solutions. Then I break down the variables as follows:

• The deficit equals the amount politically expedient at the time. For state and local situations, the deficit is set by law to equal zero.
• Revenue equals the sum of tax revenue plus fees (and federal or state aid).

I break down tax revenue in terms of public policy regarding the allocation of the tax burden over society.

• Finally, public expenditures are a matter of political compromise and expediency.

Applying these rules, local expenditures must equal local revenues. That's so simple that it seems like a waste of time to type it all out, but it's ignored by politician after politician. I will resume from this point in the next day or so.

--Dean L. Surkin

I started this blog and then did nothing for a few weeks. My father-in-law, Marvin P. Birnbaum, passed away last week. I consider myself fortunate that I got along so well with my in-laws.

Marvin passed away on June 30, 2009, due to complications from surgery. He entered the hospital 10 weeks ago for hip-replacement surgery and contracted the hospital-borne infection MRSA. The infection settled in his heart, requiring open-heart surgery to replace his previously-installed artificial valve and to clean out an abscess. Massive dosages of antibiotics cleared the MRSA, but he unfortunately developed a different drug-resistant infection. That, too, was conquered, but the antibiotics damaged his kidneys to the point where he needed dialysis. Subsequently, Marvin endured two heart attacks and had been in a persistent vegetative state for the past two weeks.

 

He died, aged 85, at St. Luke's Hospital in NYC, attended by his daughters Jacqueline and Sandy. The funeral was held on July 2nd at Louis Hirsch & Sons in the Bronx. His remains were interred at the New Cedar Park Cemetery in Paramus NJ.  

Marvin retired in 2007 from his position as a court reporter for the U.S. District Court, Southern District of NY. He had been honored as a Fellow in the Academy of Professional Reporters in 1977. He was known among his colleagues for his technical skill and prodigious memory for quotations. Long before the Internet, other court reporters would turn to Marvin to identify quotes delivered by judges and litigators. Judge Kimba Wood spoke at his retirement dinner, and then-Attorney General Mukasey sent a personal letter to be read to the attendants.

Marvin was a life-long progressive, and frequently described himself as a "yellow-dog Democrat." For those of you who do not know the phrase, it means that if the Democrats nominate a yellow dog, he'd still vote for the Democrat over the Republican.

 

Marvin was a veteran of the U.S. Army, having served during WWII in the Pacific theater. His wife Flora Birnbaum died in 2001. He is survived by his daughters Jacqueline Birnbaum and Sandra Birnbaum, and his grandchildren Hilary Clark, Joel Penney, Darren Sullivan, Eric Sullivan and Margo Sullivan.