Quoted Text

Settlement is goal of tax deal
Payment for Carver put off in bid for overall nonprofit lien settlement
By Lauren Stanforth
Published 11:16 p.m., Tuesday, August 14, 2012

SCHENECTADY — Carver Community Center was notified on Tuesday that a Florida collections agency will start foreclosure proceedings on the nonprofit organization's three buildings after Aug. 30.

But City Council members have decided not to rush to pay off the bill that stems from a long-standing tax situation as the city continues its negotiations with the collections agency to eliminate the foreclosure threat to Carver, which provides services for children in low-income areas, and at least seven other nonprofit entities.

The problem goes back to 2006, when the city began to require nonprofits to put in the necessary paperwork to be declared tax-exempt and some city groups missed the filing deadline.

Many of the organizations eventually had their property taxes forgiven through action by the Legislature. But in the meantime, the city began selling unpaid tax bills, called liens, to American Tax Funding. The liens included tax bills generated on nonprofit properties. As a result, ATF has been threatening to foreclose on the organizations, which include New Creation in Christ Ministries, the Hindu Temple and Bethel AME Church...................>>>>...................>>>>..............Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Settlement-is-goal-of-tax-deal-3788611.php#ixzz23c6X3F4y

Quoted from benny salami

More renaissance news. Mayor McCheese will throw hundreds of families into the street including churches, the YWCA and Carver CC. But he is "working together"! But he is a "law enforcement expert" and "created 5,000 jobs"-ROTFLMAO! Keep the BS going. Keep voting for all DEM idiots. Two options State Control Board or BANKRUPTCY.

Quoted from senders

the state will save carver via the Medicaid houses.....

Quoted from Libertarian4life

I really object less to welfare for non-profits that provide an actual service, than corporate welfare that provide profit to themselves.

Quoted Text

Editorial on Sch’dy
not-for-profi ts and tax liens missed the mark

    Your Aug. 15 editorial, “Both sides playing, but tax lien issue no game,” makes some incorrect assumptions. I did not urge the City Council to pay off the lien on Carver [Community Center].
    I requested the council act on the authority given them by the New York State Legislature and retroactively reinstate the tax-exempt status of Carver Community Center. If they would have acted, the lien that the city of Schenectady sold to American Tax Funding would have been extinguished but the city would have been obligated to repay American Tax Funding what they paid the city originally.
    Your position that “the City Council was right to tell McCarthy no; the city doesn’t have enough money to be engaging is such a high-stakes game at the moment, and satisfying Carver’s lien would set a bad precedent” seems to be based on limited analytical review that makes wrong conclusions. American Tax Funding paid the city for Carver’s lien and we would need to refund the money to them.
    Yes, Carver (and others) should have been more diligent in updating their tax-exempt forms on a timely basis; yes, the city should have been more fl exible in working with our not-for-profits; yes, the state Legislature should not have enabled the sale of the liens; yes, the city should not have sold the liens; and yes, American Tax Funding should not have bought the liens, but I need to deal with where we are today.
    We do not jointly hold liens with American Tax Funding. There are a large number of properties that Schenectady sold tax liens on and in subsequent years the property owner still did not make payments. Your position “if the city gets too greedy and refuses to share enough of the windfall from those...” is odd at best.
    American Tax Funding is a sophisticated national company, far more familiar with the intricacies of secondary property tax funding than myself or our city staff. They bought liens on properties in Schenectady. These properties remain on the tax rolls. They have the full and unquestioned right to pay the subsequent tax bills. They have chosen not to.
    Where in this scenario do you think there is a windfall to share or why these proprieties should be treated differently than other properties where the taxes have not been paid and the city is going through the foreclosure process clearly escapes me.
    If everybody paid the property taxes that were owed, our tax rate would be 10 percent lower. The problem exists because the city has not done any foreclosures for many years and now I must deal with a much bigger problem than we ever faced.
    We are going to go through the foreclosure process, take clear title to these properties and in a systematic and methodical manner convert them back to full use as homes and buildings that add value to our neighborhoods.

    GARY R. MCCARTHY
    Schenectady
The writer is the mayor.

Quoted Text

Ayn Rand, Welfare Queen: Living High On Government Assistance?
By Austin Cline, About.com GuideFebruary 6, 2011
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The importance of Ayn Rand for modern conservatism would be difficult to underestimate. This has always been ironic given her staunch atheism, something that is completely at odds with almost everything in conservatism in America today. Less ironic is the recent revelation that Ayn Rand was a hypocrite: she secretly accepted government assistance instead of relying on the proceeds of all those books in which she decried government assistance.

A heavy smoker who refused to believe that smoking causes cancer brings to mind those today who are equally certain there is no such thing as global warming. Unfortunately, Miss Rand was a fatal victim of lung cancer.

However, it was revealed in the recent "Oral History of Ayn Rand" by Scott McConnell (founder of the media department at the Ayn Rand Institute) that in the end Ayn was a vip-dipper as well. An interview with Evva Pryror, a social worker and consultant to Miss Rand's law firm of Ernst, Cane, Gitlin and Winick verified that on Miss Rand's behalf she secured Rand's Social Security and Medicare payments which Ayn received under the name of Ann O'Connor (husband Frank O'Connor).

As Pryor said, "Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out" without the aid of these two government programs. Ayn took the bail out even though Ayn "despised government interference and felt that people should and could live independently... She didn't feel that an individual should take help."

But alas she did and said it was wrong for everyone else to do so. Apart from the strong implication that those who take the help are morally weak, it is also a philosophic point that such help dulls the will to work, to save and government assistance is said to dull the entrepreneurial spirit.

In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.

Source: The Huffington Post
She only got lung cancer because of her stupid, pig-headed denial that her smoking caused cancer in the first place. It would have been one thing if she had at least admitted that she knew the risks and wanted to do it anyway because she enjoyed smoking. Instead she lived in denial -- perhaps in order to avoid accepting any moral responsibility for getting the disease that killed her. Waiting, isn't accepting full responsibility for one's choices one of the principle of her philosophy?

This would be consistent with not accepting moral responsibility for refusing to live up to the principles which she demanded that everyone else live by. Randian apologists have argued that there is no hypocrisy in taking back the money one once had to give up in taxation -- and up to a point, they have something like an argument. Unfortunately what little they have quickly falls apart.

First, if her accepting government assistance really was principled and completely consistent with her philosophy, why was it apparently concealed? It should have been well known already as a demonstration that despite having money "stolen" in taxes, she was still able to get it back in the end. Why apply for the assistance under a name that would keep the information quiet?

Even more significant is the fact that a person suffering from lung cancer will likely take far more from the system than they paid into it. The surgery she underwent alone may have used up all that she paid into it, and that doesn't include whatever her husband took out of the system. If she had carefully calculated what she had paid in plus interest and took only that, no more, then one could argue that she stuck to her principles. We have no evidence that this occurred, however, and strong reasons to think that it did not.

In her own words, then, wasn't she little more than a parasite on society, stealing the fruits of others' labor instead of using her own resources and accepting the consequences of her own bad choices in life? Then again, the movement she spawned doesn't seem to be any different. The Tea Baggers all complain about "government health care" for others even as they happily draw on Medicare and Social Security to keep themselves alive, comfortable, and privileged.

Ayn Rand's philosophy is not one that any sane, rational adult can live by consistently any more than it's a philosophy that any successful, prosperous society could adopt. Ayn Rand wasn't insane so as soon as it was plain what her real choices were she chose to path of government support and abandoned her own failed philosophy. She just didn't have the courage to admit how much of a failure her philosophy was before she died.

There is another interesting parallel to be drawn from this: Ayn Rand's behavior tracks disturbing well with the behavior of so many religious leaders. How many of them preach one thing from the pulpit then do something else behind closed doors? How many priests inveigh against homosexuality before their congregation while their male lovers wait for them in some motel room? How many priests promote the virtues of abstinence and chastity just after molesting an altar boy? How many preach the gospel of Jesus then at the end of a hard day drive their luxury car to their multi-million dollar mansion?
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February 6, 2011 at 6:53 pm(1) Victoria says:
I wonder how many Republicans who pooh-pooh general assitance of any kind, or Rep./Dem who are wealthy still collect SSI and Medicare when they are 65. They probably do. They feel they desearve it.

February 7, 2011 at 12:43 pm(2) Henry Solomon says:
In defense of Ayn Rand, fortunately, her writings are available for those who are interested enough to read them. Her position on public welfare is stated in her article “The question of Scholarships,” published in The Objectivist, June 1966.

“Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others, and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others–the advocates and supporters of the welfare state are morally guilty of robbing their opponents, and the fact that the robbery is legalized makes it morally worse, not better. The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it.”

February 7, 2011 at 1:00 pm(3) Austin Cline says:
In defense of Ayn Rand…

I’m sure you saw that this “defense” was already addressed above.

March 17, 2011 at 6:27 am(4) Alistair Stewart says:
Not really. It says that if the system is there anyway, even if you don’t agree with it, might as well take advantage of it. That seems reasonable to me.

The fact is though that she did ended up being a parasite through her smoking. She could have avoided it entirely, yet didn’t. I do feel she is “morally guilty of robbing her opponents”, and therefore is a hypocrite.

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May 14, 2011 at 9:32 pm(5) Fred Sparks says:
“by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it.” Parasites?

What does that make her?

There is no justifying or rationalizing her views- they are anti-christ by definition. She just took Nietzsche to the next level. And she was a master liar. Example:

“Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others”…Hold up a second, that’s true!…but let’s keep going…

“and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others” Now that’s a lie! Your money is property in trade to pay taxes, your share. Everything henceforth in the logic is a lie. As was her life’s work.

May 16, 2011 at 8:20 pm(6) Dangerclose says:
Wait, wut?

So by paying taxes for public use items such as roads, utilities, the common defense, you somehow thinks this makes it ok for the govt. to steal from the Citizenry under the color of law and give away the money earned by the working to the lazy who don’t work?

You sir, are an idiot.

It’s a shame that you still get to vote.

February 8, 2011 at 3:29 pm(7) Dean says:
I’m not seeing how it was addressed. Rand didn’t fault people who needed assistance from taking what was available. Her ire was directed at those who set up the system, not those who turned to it when they were in need.

I can still see the hypocrisy charge sticking, I’m just not seeing how your article addresses her stated position on taking public assistance. She seems to have been ashamed of doing so herself, but lots of people are.

February 8, 2011 at 5:47 pm( Austin Cline says: