Hawley lashes out at Albany after another employer in Orleans County announces closure

Going to hurt long time employees who have invested most of their working careers into this company. They don't have much of a choice but to move to finish out their working careers and collect a pension. Reminds me of Jello years ago. Similar situation.

He's right. We tax everything, we over regulate everything, then we are devastated when the business relocates. Well get off the couch and vote. We have enough votes upstate to overcome anything in NY City. But we are not solving anything with 40% of registered voters voting. Nor do we solve anything when so many aren't even registered. I blame the Republican Party for not pushing the vote , or registration. Just sitting in your fiefdom with your arms folded because 90% of the voters in your town are Republican will not get things changed in NY!! Nor do they have to be Republican. We need folks willing to do what is best for US!! There, I feel better.

I know how it is. I lost 17 yrs. when Doehler Jarvis pulled out of Batavia in 1982..

Maybe it is more about a broken IDA system...After these so call tax abatement's end, companies leave..

You are so right, Fred. Great comment!

Mark, I agree, but it is a lot more than that. We are taxed to death in this State. Most don't realize what we pay everyday. Businesses pay more. Just think about a business that requires delivery. We pay 40-50 cents a gallon more for gas than any other state (Except California). When considering locating here, would you rather pay 3.80 cents a gallon, or move to SC and pay 3.03 a gallon. Even when the folks that make these decisions figure it all out, they eventually consider what they personally pay in Taxes. Just think about paying NY 40 cents because you bought a hamburger at Mickey D's. What does NY do to earn that 40 cents. NOTHING!! Check out your utility bill, there are more taxes and fees on that. Multiply that a thousand time for a business. Something as cheap and insignificant as your annual 5.00 donation for a dog license is a Tax. They call it a fee, but you are being taxed because you own a dog. The sign at the state border should read " Welcome to New York, the Empire State, pull over and pay here"!! If King Andrew could find a way to measure the air we breath, that would be taxed as well.

Fred; Mark and I along with 2 other gentlemen who comment on here were having this very same conversation last night. We decided that most of us lose about 60% of our income to taxes. It is absolutely unsustainable, immoral, unconstitutional and just flat killing the economy in so many ways.

and oh by the way, whatever we do, do NOT Tax Cigarettes sold to non-native Americans on the Reservation. Just tax the ones sold at the corner store. There is something wrong with this whole picture. Thanks to everyone for their positive responses. You can tell this is a sour subject for a retired UAW worker, that watched hundred or thousands of our jobs moved out of NY.

There are three industries necessary for long term employment,

Agriculture
Manufacturing
Reclamation Of Natural Resources

ALL other industries grow from these three, and NY State, it's tax structure and it's finger in the pie politics does all that it can to minimize all three of them.

When you look at the Top three states for job development right now, Texas, North Dakota and Florida, the have a common denominator, Little or no State Income tax, low property taxes, and pay for services as opposed to tax and spend services like we have here.

Contrary to what Mark P's assertion that Tax Abatements are the problem, all three of them give higher tax abatements to bring in industry than we do in New York State. Way higher as a percentage of tax revenue.

Wisconsin, were benz-o-matic is consolidating too consolidating too, offers tremendous tax abatements and is making bringing core industries a priority right now, and they did that fighting a massive tax and spend liberal history in recent years.

High taxes and excessive environmentalism has been the curse to prosperity for years and New York is near the top of that list.

Excessive taxation and regulation are the demise of New York, and until that is addressed, manufacturing businesses will simply move elsewhere.

High taxes and excessive regulations are exactly the main impediment to home grown businesses Howard

I grant you that Howard, however entrepreneurial enterprise also begins with filling a community need, when you eliminate the base, i.e. Agriculture, Manufacturing and Resource development, the need is reduced thus the motivation for the entrepreneurial endeavor. In other words, there is no need to start a bus service if no one is there to ride the bus.

Everything in life is circular, enterprise just like anything else is a reaction to a situation not the foundation, We build houses to shelter those there and those coming rather that building and hoping that they will come. An entrepreneur creates and seizes opportunity based on community need, to sell anything you need a market, and to create a market, there must be a need.

When the population shifts away following the basic three industries, so too does the needs of that population and with it the entrepreneur to seize on the opportunity.

Come on now, Howard. Although I can agree that making lemon aid from lemons is the best path, that doesn't mean NYS is not increasingly making life harder on small businesses. You just posted a story about a deli being shut down by the division of taxation. A totally thuggish outfit if ever there was. Their legal coercion and seizure tactics are legendary.

Mark "Everything in life is circular, enterprise just like anything else is a reaction to a situation not the foundation, We build houses to shelter those there and those coming rather that building and hoping that they will come."

I like what you are saying, I agree with your comment. But why then have you defended the GCEDC's use of taxpayer money to create "shovel ready" industrial parks?

Wow.. Ass'yman Hawley really struck a sour spot. Manufacturing, or lack of, seems to be a common thread. Manufacturing not only creates jobs making something(Howard), but sustains support jobs in the community. Like restaurants etc. But ask any remaining manufacturing company and they will tell you it is very difficult in NY to stay competitive. Especially when we all flock to Walmart and Target to buy all the Chinese goods we can get our hands on. Ask Leroy Machine how competitive they were. They cut, and cut, and cut, and still could not compete with folks working for $10.00 a month, with no Healthcare, no Social Security, No unemployment, and no workmans comp. Employers here are faced with these costs before they even produce a product or pay taxes. Employers in Bangladesh don't. Big disadvantage. But high taxes and regs do not help.

Dave ALL States compete for industry, Simply saying that we are not going to do that here, will not stop Texas which gives 56 cents of every dollar in the state budget toward recruiting industries as opposed to our 7 cents per tax dollar, or Florida's 16 cents or north Dakota's 10 cents.

We could do away with GCDEC today, and all IDA's in New York, and feel happy, until we realize that IDA's in 48 of the other 50 states won the contracts of new industry over us. That is the reality.

When the Federal government grants tax incentive, it is picking and choosing, however when a State government does it is competing with the other states as they are supposed too.

We are not ever going to eliminate competition between states, nor should we think of doing so,

Sadly, WNY will not be all it can be while Albany has its grubby paws in our back pockets. Eliminate the mandates, eliminate the eastward flowing river of cash, and eliminate the interference then maybe we could fully enjoy the positive aspects of the area.

Mark I just believe that the IDA's are making the problem worse instead of helping. Until this "breaks for some, but not everyone" stops, the taxes in NY are never going to subside. Other states be damned. Why do we try to compete? Why are we using failed practices of making the grass look greener on our side, over and over when they just don't work that well?
I do agree with Howard in that small firms, community grounded, family tied and entrepreneur run can do wonders for a community. How about linking together into some type of co-operative to manufacture parts of a product that can be marketed as a completed unit by the co-op? Instead of spending money and resources on luring a big manufacturer by preparing a place that most likely will have to be altered a few times until a taker is found, who typically doesn't fulfill the promises made. in the meantime, everyone sits around waiting, doesn't vote and Albany keeps pressing down harder and harder on our necks with the big boot.

One thing is sure, people create opportunity not government.

Year after year, business groups rate NY as an unfriendly place to do business. Sure some come here and open up, but you just have to look and see how many have left.

Albany refuses to reform itself. By now we know out of control state spending is a major problem. We have state authorities that do not answer to anyone. We have agencies that have overlapping jobs and wasteful spending. We have a Medicaid program that cost more than any other state in the union, but it keeps going on and on.

Mark, you are so right on the button on this......you are clear voice of reason. Mark, I know you are probably really busy running your own company, but I think there might be a higher calling for you.....to serve on some kind of business council or in some kind of advisory position on the state level. Have you ever given any thought to doing something of this sort?

And quietly Rick Perry, Governor of Texas was in NY State last week giving his pitch to several small medical equipment manufacturers through out New York State. "Come to Texas" the MOST BUSINESS FRIENDLY STATE was his battle cry, and you can bet that over the next few years some of those small entrepreneurial companies not only will, but they will prosper in the process.

You asked, " Why do we try to compete?' We compete because that is what commerce is, a series of competitions, while industries compete for market share, States and communities compete for those businesses to bring employment and growth.

Thank you for the kind words Michael, but there are far more qualified and accomplished people out there than I could ever be already there, and what they are saying is falling on deft ears.

But andy cuomo was just in the area yesterday telling what great things he us doing for us poor dumb upstaters

I think this entire group would make a great Business Council,, and cost a lot less than we pay now. Nice picture of a business being seized for not paying taxes. Seems to reinforce everything we are talking about.

The question was rhetorical, Mark. The point is that it has not been an effective strategy and throwing more money (tax break gimmicks) at it won't work. Only makes it worse.

I have to stop now, even my hard head hurts after banging it on the desk after a while.

Fred I have to say the pendulum is swinging though. Take a look at products in Wal Mart and Target, even Dollar General and such. look at the generic brands in these places now. Alot of those products are now made in USA again. China and India are going through what we did during the industrial revolution, cheap labor aint so cheap, they are organizing unions and people are just refusing to work for almost nothing. I couldn't believe it myself til I looked for myself it seems to be true. This holds up Mark's circular theory about these types of things. As an amateur historian I can see this happening throughout time as well...

As for the situation in Medina. I saw Howard mention that he didn't mind Pepsi getting a tax break. However as that tax break dwindles, whats to stop Pepsi from doing the same thing to "maximize efficiency" in the future. All over the country there are towns that are almost dead because they had a big boom of industry then those industries move or consolidate leaving behind buildings useless for anything. Its one of the caveats for the GCEDC creating a pseudo economic bubble. Whe it bursts and reality sets in, it wont be pretty.

Its a band aid solution for an arterial wound.

Also the amateur historian in me is laughing at some of this as well. I read somewhere that the taxes we endure with a simple shrug of the shoulders and an "Oh well". They are almost 4x what our Founding Fathers began this country over. I wonder how long before history repeats itself? Will we see a NY I-Phone party where a shipment of whatever that year's I-phone is is dumped into NY harbor in protest of it being made abroad, taxed heavily and so on.... LOL

I am sarcastic but believe it or not Tea was to that generation, what our mobile phones are to us today. Only difference is our Founding Fathers were sensible enough not to drink it while driving/riding.