Nothing To See Here
Move along. At least, that’s what ‘Puter’s elected representatives would have him believe.
First, New York raised its income tax rate on high earners, creating an effective tax rate not seen since the 1970s. You remember, right before New York City essentially went bankrupt.
Now it seems that not only has New York’s budget deficit has swelled more than $750 million in two weeks, to $8.2 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31. New York’s comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the deficit is even worse. Check out the facts:
DiNapoli said that personal-income tax collections through the first nine months of the fiscal year declined more than 15 percent from the same period last year, lower than Paterson’s projections.
He said state spending over the next five years was expected to grow by 33.6 percent while revenues were projected to grow by only 12.2 percent.
So, let’s noodle this over a bit, shall we? New York raises income tax rates on high earners, and tax receipts plummet. ‘Puter understands correlation does not (necessarily) equal causation, but c’mon, guys. Every single time you raise taxes, revenue falls. To make matters worse, there’s a 20 percent gap between revenues and expenditures over the next five years.
Let’s try something radical. Something thousands of American families have had to do during this recession. Let’s cut New York’s spending to match its revenues. ‘Puter’ll be happy to offer some suggested areas for cuts.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.