c. Stop the Consolidation of Power
The $45 billion proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable will make all this much worse. Both companies have a sizable presence in the state: Comcast has
23,000 digital cable, Internet, and telephone subscribers in New York, while Time Warner Cable has close to
2.6 million subscribers spanning New York City and upstate areas. Merging will make it easier for the new giant to hike prices without improving service. Any remaining incentive to build-out in underserved areas and invest in world-class broadband infrastructure like fiber-optics networks will vanish. The two companies already wield massive economic and political power over the residents of our state; this merger will consolidate that power even further.
The Governor of New York could work to stop this merger. Yet Governor Cuomo’s response has been astoundingly meek. His only act has been to ask the
Public Service Commission to review how the deal with impact New York residents. He has signaled he will push the companies to show how the merger promotes the public interest and to improve access and service across the state.
This kind of deal-cutting shortchanges New York. We cannot settle for paltry concessions that companies can renege on or modify later. What we really need is real market competition. We need to unwind the extreme consolidation that is fleecing New Yorkers for third-rate service, and leaving us behind other regions in the US and across the world. And we should ensure the cable giants can’t squeeze the life and profitability out of our TV and film industries, mainstays of New York’s economy and culture.
We should strongly urge the Public Service Commission to challenge the Comcast-TWC merger outright. More broadly, we should push to expand PSC jurisdiction so that the Commission also oversees the provision of Internet service. We need public oversight over what is today a vital public good. We should act, not simply react, by pushing universal, open, affordable, and world-class Internet in New York. We should promote the use of
municipal mesh networks, which empower communities to own and maintain their own wireless networks, while making essential communications infrastructure more resilient. And we should make sure Comcast can’t relegate New York’s small businesses and budding tech entrepreneurs to Internet slow lanes, while cutting deals with other corporate giants. We must unleash the innovative potential of truly high-speed and open Internet for businesses and citizens, to ensure everyone can participate fully in our democracy and economy.
d. Infrastructure
Two of the most immediate threats to New York are its aging infrastructure - like bridges, rails, and pipes - and the fragility of its critical systems, like food distribution. As both the
gasoline explosion that ripped through two Manhattan buildings in March and
Hurricane Sandy revealed, inaction has and will continue to cost us human lives. Governor Cuomo has failed to address these vital issues in a comprehensive and sustainable way, leaving New Yorkers alarmingly exposed to the next disaster.
On the surface, the Governor has made infrastructure a priority. In January
he unrolled an extensive proposal to equip New York for disaster preparedness by building a weather detection system, repairing old bridges, and launching a college dedicated to studying emergency preparedness. But it's hard to believe that the Governor is serious about this
$17 billion plan, because he has steadily eroded the state's ability to pay for these vital updates. Two rounds of steep budget cuts for 2015 and 2016 have already handicapped the state's ability to pay for school aid, public education, and aid to distressed localities, and the Governor's multi-year tax cut package will further deplete state tax revenues. One of the most telling measures of the Governor’s neglect is how drastically he has
reduced capital spending.
Worse, to make his budget work, the Governor is raiding even those funds explicitly designated for improving roads, bridges, and transit. In 2013, the Governor first diverted $20 million from MTA transit funds to balance the general state budget; this year he swept away $30 million, and plans to take at least $20 million from the state's transit fund every year until 2031 – which would rob the MTA of $350 million in funds designated for improving our transit system over the next 17 years. These cuts hit at a time when
MTA's margins are dropping, and would make the agency's budget more reliant on volatile tax returns.
New Yorkers lose massively from the Governor's decision to use transit funds as an ATM: the MTA is delaying necessary maintenance and repairs because it lacks the
$10.5 billion to fix its tracks and trains. Nor is it just MTA funds:
78 percent of the $3.8 billion that New Yorkers pay in highway taxes and fees each year is diverted to cover state budget costs, leaving crucial highway and bridge projects underfunded. It's difficult to believe the Governor is committed to making New York infrastructure safe when he is robbing it of crucial investment.
What’s more, updating our infrastructure and building safer systems presents a huge opportunity to create jobs in New York and boost local business -- after all, the MTA is the country's largest transit system, and the state houses the largest base of transit-related manufacturing firms in the US. The importance of leveraging these resources to bolster our economy seems obvious. But when awarding the
$235 million contract to renovate the Verrazano Bridge, the MTA chose a Chinese company over local steel millers, giving away jobs and money that the state sorely needs.
Importantly, the Cuomo administration has also failed to address one of the main lessons of Superstorm Sandy: that the citizens of New York have
only nine meals of food in the delivery pipeline leading to their homes, schools, and hospitals. One of the main reasons for this is that a handful of dominant companies that control the delivery infrastructure on which we depend have drastically consolidated supply, moving food stocks from within the city out into warehouses located as far as the distant reaches of Pennsylvania. Another reason why we remain so susceptible is that these companies have also shifted towards lean supply chains and practices like “just-in-time” delivery, which enables them to keep less storage, save some pennies – and, in times of disaster – leave us exposed to drastic shortages. The
pending merger between two of the country’s biggest food distributors – Sysco and US Foods – would intensify each of these threats, by eliminating competition and handing enormous power over our food distribution to even fewer executives.
We should make it a priority to fund crucial infrastructure projects by hiring workers and manufacturers in New York. We should reject any efforts to divert funds from the transit authority, and make sure that Albany doesn’t breach promises to taxpayers about how it will use their money. We should also closely scrutinize the merger between Sysco and US Foods, and ensure that any future consolidation of our food systems doesn’t compromise our safety.