Comments on: Tor-Buff Bills

By: David

David — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:08:58 +0000

Also, I moved away from Buffalo going on 6 years and I still and always will consider Buffalo Home – It was a beautiful place to grow up

By: Buzzcut

Buzzcut — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:56:30 +0000

One word: Newark.

Proximity is not destiny.

By: David

David — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:37:11 +0000

I agree with this concept that building a stronger relationship with Toronto and Southern Ontario will help Buffalo in the future. The city of Buffalo is positioned at the right place by that it is the closest American city to one third of the Canadian population! (Detroit or Seattle can’t claim that) Toronto is the largest city in Canada and continues to grow. If the city of Buffalo is to rise again it will be because of this good neighborhood and it already is the city of good neighbors!

By: Buzzcut

Buzzcut — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:33:56 +0000

When I left Western New York in 1998, my real estate taxes were 5% of my home’s value. State income taxes were 7%, sales tax was near 8%. Moving to Chicago, I easily cut my state and local taxes in half. And Chicago isn’t even a low tax city.

Has anything changed in that regard? Are taxes lower 10 years later? Of course not.

I know Richard is the main cheerleader for coolness over marginal tax rates as a driver of economic growth, but the fact is that small businesses are capital starved. The higher their taxes, the more likely it is to fail.

Now, perhaps marginal tax rates aren’t the be-all and end-all of growth. Attitude matters. Lord knows that 60+ years of economic decline have decimated the ranks of entrepreneurial minded people in Western New York. The best and brightest have moved elsewhere.

But to ignore the very simple fact that New York State is simply an awful place to do business makes your predictions very unlikely to come true.

There’s a reason those houses around Delaware Park are so cheap. It is NOT unrealized potential.

By: nb3004

nb3004 — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:17:02 +0000

Thanks for a somewhat positive story about Buffalo, while I don’t think a Super Bowl win would add people to Buffalo, I do think that a southern Ontario creep of people and jobs certainly can, and hopefully show that it is cheap to live here. Now we only need to do something about state taxes that hinder new business growth.