Probing Joe's dough

From the Daily News:

When [Joe Crowley] was first elected to Congress, labor unions were his biggest financial backers. They've been eclipsed by financial, insurance and real estate interests, records compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics show.

By the 2008 election, half of Crowley's contributions came from those three industries.

"I think I've matured here both personally and in terms of my assignments," Crowley said. "Many people here in Washington view me as an important figure."

In October, as the House wrestled with financial regulatory reform, Crowley and several other members of the New Democrat Coalition traveled to Wall Street to meet with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs executives.

Crowley said the financial powerhouses are "important to New York."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to people who will be affected by the legislation you're going to pass," he said.

Crowley also has received tens of thousands of campaign dollars from real estate investment trusts - companies that use investors' money to purchase and manage commercial real estate.

Since 2008, a political action committee of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts has donated $33,500 for Crowley's campaign and leadership PAC.

His donors had reason to be pleased with him. In 2008, Crowley pushed legislation that let the trusts resell properties faster without tax penalties.

"Mr. Crowley was very much central to the cause on the House side," one industry observer said.

Then on Jan. 27, Crowley sponsored the Real Estate Revitalization Act of 2010 - a bill that would lower taxes on foreigners investing in real estate trusts.

Four days later, Crowley flew to L.A. to attend the Grammy awards, at one point posing with pop star Katy Perry.

While he was there, Peter Lowy, a top executive of the Westfield Group, an Australian-based developer whose lobbyists have pushed Crowley's bill, organized a Crowley fund-raiser at a restaurant called Toscanova.

Lowy and his wife also have contributed $18,800 to Crowley since February 2008.

A spokesman for Westfield said Lowy hosted the L.A. event as an individual. Crowley insisted it was "crazy" to think campaign money had any impact on his decision to sponsor the legislation.

He said he's gone against the real estate trusts, including raising taxes on profits for investment managers. "I have never, ever, ever sold my vote," he said.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

He's killing us with taxes

From the Daily News:

Today, New York City faces a frightening economic future because it has priced itself as a luxury product dependent on a narrow set of customers, namely Wall Street firms and those businesses which lived off the once-thriving work provided by the finance industry, like corporate lawyers or high-powered consultants. But with Washington eyeing a flurry of new regulations and taxes on financial firms that could limit future profits and growth in the industry, New York may be hard-pressed to find other industries that can boost its fortunes.

Let’s start with property taxes. Thanks to the mayor’s tax increases, as well as sharp boosts in assessments, firms located in Midtown Manhattan pay, on average, $15.20 a square foot in property taxes, up 53% since 2001, according to research by the Studley real estate firm.

That bite is more than triple the national average of $4.48 a square foot for major cities, and it’s five times the average of commercial property taxes per square foot in northern New Jersey, resulting in millions of dollars of extra taxes for big companies The bottom line: Since 2002, total real estate tax collections in New York have almost doubled, from $8.6 billion to $16.1 billion — a rate of growth nearly three times the rate of inflation.

Even more troubling is that the city taxes have grown under Bloomberg, who constructed the city’s budget as if the housing and finance bubbles of a few years ago would go on forever. A previous IBO study estimated that the local tax burden in 1997 was 79% higher than other cities, but the burden then shrank because of tax cuts enacted by the Giuliani administration and the City Council in the late 1990s. Between 1997 and 2000, the burden declined by about 8%, before starting to rise again under Bloomberg.

Bloomberg afraid of Obama's bank tax plan

From the NY Post:

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that President Obama's plan to slap a tax on banks is aimed squarely at the city's lifeblood and could turn Manhattan into a crumbling wreck like Detroit.

Bloomberg warned that the plan could bring about the collapse of the city's financial sector and starve New York of revenue it needs to provide basic services.

"And if you want to see what happens to a city when their major industry fails, just take a look at Detroit," which has been reeling from the collapse of the auto industry.

"I'm very concerned that we don't drive business overseas. London became a financial center when we increased regulation here," he said, adding, "I certainly hope our legislators in Washington will fight to protect our industry here."

But the early indications weren't clear.

Sen. Charles Schumer, an Obama supporter who typically champions Wall Street, is for the bank-tax proposal.

"While we await the details of the president's proposal, the original rescue legislation clearly required that financial institutions that benefited from [the bailout] would contribute additional funds until taxpayers were fully repaid. The point of that provision was to put taxpayers first, and I agree with that," Schumer (D-NY) said.

Kirsten Gillibrand, Schumer's New York Democratic colleague, said, "While the administration's approach is far better than some proposals, such as taxing financial transactions, our focus should be on making sure that banks are lending to small businesses and spurring immediate job creation."

College grads staying away

From The Real Deal:

As the Manhattan real estate market sits at a standstill and once filled-to-capacity towers rapidly empty out, landlords and brokers struggle to fill apartments with a class of renters they would normally count on at this time of year -- out-of-state college graduates. Because of the collapse of financial firms, some doe-eyed grads have abandoned plans to move to the Big Apple.

City tries retraining financial workers

From the NY Times:

Under a program unveiled on Wednesday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the city wants to invest $45 million in government money to retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street, as well as provide seed capital and office space for new businesses those laid-off bankers might create.

The plan is intended to stem a potential exodus of banking professionals from the city during the restructuring of the financial services industry, which has been the city’s economic engine for decades, and to speed the industry’s recovery, which will take at least several years, officials said.

City officials also plan to try to lure big banks and financial companies from Asia and elsewhere to set up operations in New York, filling some of the void created by the implosion of large American firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. They hope the federal and state governments will let them use $30 million in federal money to attract those companies and other financial firms to Lower Manhattan.