The Allegheny Institute is so horrified that Councilor Natalia Rudiak thinks all workers ought to be able to earn $53,000 a year, it won't even print her name.
Meanwhile, UPMC and City officials are going to engage in some sort of Socratic dialogue tomorrow.
"If UPMC loses its non-profit status and has to pay millions in property taxes, where does it take the money from? Wages, benefits, free health care?"
ReplyDelete...
Ha ha! Advertising, just mayhaps?
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYes - and I know it's old hat to say yet again, but maybe some of that money could come from the CEO's salary?
Jeffrey Romoff, UPMC
2010 pay: $4 million
Readers here can see his pay for yourselves on the nonprofit IRS Form 990 for UPMC. (And you can search for financial and proxy statements of publicly-traded
companies here: http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm)
So, yeah, not only less money for all those glossy, beautifully produced ads across so many media venues, but also some restructuring of compensation for the pointy tip-top layers of the pyramid might mean that even all those tiny little people at the bottom wouldn't have to give up wages, benefits, free health care.
And (again, Anonymous, probably preaching well-known stuff to the choir here) if we just taxed top management of UPMC under the old pre-Bush rates, yeah, I'm betting we'd have a lot more in the public pot to pay for the services that directly benefit their business - like transit.
All households (whether single or married-filing-jointly)reach the top income tax bracket with 379,150 in household income. The top marginal rate was 39.6% in 2000, and is 35% now, because of the Federal income tax cuts enacted under Bush.
So, using those figures, and not counting whatever charitable contributions made to reduce tax liabilities or other tax schemes that benefit the rich (the low capital gains tax rate, for instance,)if we consider the profits of such tax policies just for one man, that adds up to:
Annual tax cut for Romoff: $146,495
Yah, just so much less of an equitable share towards crucial infrastructure, schools, maintaining basic environmental health of the city (like that big sewer fix by Alcosan that gotta happen)- nearly all of which investment of public funds would directly benefit the mid and bottom-rungers of Romoff's non-private pyramid who are stuck here in this "most livable" city.
and how does Commisar Rudiak expect that to happen...maybe everyone should work for SEIU or
ReplyDeletemaybe AFSCME in some govt job and we could just recycle the play money printed by the fed
"Don't turn around, oh oh."
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, almost all workers SHOULD get themselves organized and give themselves the ability to bargain collectively. I used to be wishy-washy on the EFCA but now it's like a class-war emergency. You know how the youngin's are appropriating Elks Clubs and Rotary Clubs? When in doubt, maybe people should begin organizing under the Teamsters banner.