Did you know that the average American, that’s you and I by the way, will pay $524,625 in taxes throughout our lives. Put another way, that is a third (34.7%) of our earnings based on estimated lifetime earnings of $1,494,986. That includes taxes on income, sales taxes, school taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, self-employment taxes, and excise taxes, sometimes called sin taxes like those on wine and spirits.

I’ve probably missed some taxes, but you get the idea. In New York state, according to one study we pay an average of 45.1% of our lifetime earnings in taxes. We, the citizens of New York state have the dubious honor of living in the most highly taxed state in the nation.

At this point you might want to ask just what we get for all these taxes we pay. Do we get our money’s worth?

To begin, New York State’s public schools are number one in the nation spending more than $25,000 per student per year. However, New York students are not first in academic achievement with its students scoring in the middle of the pack on national math and reading tests. No one in the educational community has a solution for this disparity except to spend more money.

In Utah, which spends the least per student at $7800 per year, its students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress Reading and math proficiency tests are far better than New York students. In 2022 students in Utah were thirdin the nation in reading and second in math proficiency while New York students came out 13th and 22nd respectively. There are obvious differences between Utah and New York, but it should be clear that throwing more money at the issue is certainly not the full answer.

In a bit of budgetary hocus pocus for years New York state governors have used state budgets to create “lump sum” funds, actually slush funds that enabled them to dole out billions of dollars with little or no oversight and often in secret. These are appropriations that authorize spending on a wide range of projects and programs that are determined and allocated months and even years later by the Legislature and Governor.

For many years the Office of the State Comptroller and several watchdog groups have warned of an increased risk of waste and corruption with lump fund spending because this type of spending is sometime used as both a carrot and stick to influence individual legislators meaning that how the funds are spent too often is based more on politics than on public benefit.

Examples of what lump sum spending goes to are these in fiscal year 2023: A carousel in Buffalo got $600,000, the New York Shakespeare Festival got $250,000, the Sing Sing Prison Museum got just $125,000, while millions went to nonprofits focused for “safety and restorative justice,” whatever they are. Also, a long list of organizations received grants for causes like promoting jazz music among “underserved communities.”

Like many things in New York state government its budget process is byzantine in nature. This year in the runup to passage of the 2025 budget the Governor and Democratic lawmakers had a field day adding “tack ons” to the budget. These included $80 million for a new “Cannabis Rescue and Relief Fund” to help the weed industry, $10 million for toll-free calls for inmates even as the Assembly defunds state police vehicles and equipment to fight retail theft by $7.4 million, $5.1 million for “various labor initiatives” that are described as total “pork”, and $175 million for health care for illegal migrants.

It is this almost totally irresponsible spending that feeds an almost pathological lust for generating revenue through taxes and fees by a Democratically controlled state government that are driving many New Yorkers to greener pastures in states like Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. I hasten to add that in the past Republicans have also proven themselves irresponsible when it came to spending.

The federal government does no better at controlling spending. The U.S. government is famous for having multiple agencies offering similar programs and services. Part of the reason is that many programs continue in existence because they blend into the background and have administrators experienced at playing the bureaucratic survival game. Another reason for duplication occurs when Senators or Representatives decide a program is needed to solve a problem without even checking to see if there already is an agency created to do the same thing.

Here are just a few of those duplications. Currently, in Housing Assistance 20 agencies run 160 programs. In Early Learning and Childcare nine agencies run 50 programs while seven agencies run 21 programs dealing with homelessness. In programs designed to improve teacher quality 10 agencies run 80 programs while at the Department of Justice 253 Grant Programs are overseen by 10 agencies.

Last June U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before the House Oversight Committee that the government could save over $100 billion by reducing overlapping programs and duplications with the biggest savings coming from improvements in Medicare payments at Health and Human Services. Nuclear waste disposal, Navy ship building and IRS enforcement efforts.

Will anything be done to cut this waste? Probably not. They have been talking about this for as long as I can remember, and nothing ever seems to get done and probably won’t get done until the U.S. is in danger of going belly up. As for New York budget gimmickry and unabated taxing and spending will continue until everyone with taxable income has abandoned the state.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com