Mark Lieberman, a civic activist and experienced journalist, announced today he would run to fill the open seat in New York’s 42nd Assembly District representing the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Midwood, Ditmas Park and Flatbush.
A lifelong resident of the community and a product of local schools, Lieberman has deep ties to the district. Having spent a lifetime uncovering government waste and corruption, Lieberman now wants to use his expertise to target government problems—and fix them.
“Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’ for corrupt government. Throughout my news career and afterward I’ve argued and fought for greater transparency in government and will continue to do so as a member of the Assembly,” he said.
The seat is being vacated by retiring Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs. It is a hotly contested race to represent a diverse community of all income levels and cultural backgrounds including the Orthodox Jews of Midwood, the Caribbean immigrants of Flatbush and the urban professionals of Ditmas Park.
“The 42nd Assembly District has been ably represented in Albany for the past 36 years. I run not to undo Rhoda Jacobs’ accomplishments but to build on them bringing my knowledge, background and experience to solve the problems of the 21st century,” Lieberman said.
Lieberman is running on a five-point platform that includes;
· Introducing legislation to give reduced fare MetroCards to food stamp recipients
· Returning responsibility for setting the city’s water rates to elected officials to prevent onerous increases
· Fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing future increases to inflation
· Promoting a reasonable tax on millionaires to generate revenue and provide needed programs for district residents
· Introducing legislation to fight drunk driving by banning the sale of cold beer at gas stations
As an award-winning reporter and columnist for the New York Daily News, Lieberman exposed political corruption and the abuse of taxpayer dollars. Following his journalism career, he served as director of investigations in the State Senate where he oversaw the first government investigation of the AIDS epidemic and won the first state funding for AIDS, saving countless lives. A trained economist, he was an officer of three of the nation’s largest banks and the Senior Economist at the Fox Business Network. Most recently, he has served as a board member of Citizens Union fighting to reform government and end the abusive practice of stop-question-and-frisk, a board member of the Community Service Society and a Board member of City Limits magazine. He’s also a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and was a member and officer of the Brooklyn Public Library board of trustees.
(YWN Desk – NYC)
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4 Responses
I guess points 2 and 5 may be worth something…
all I can say is yuck!
Platform point 1, MetroCard:
What kind of people take the subway? Middle and Low income residents. If the price is lowered to accommodate the poor, Who will pay the difference? another tax on the middle class?
Last I checked, the MTA has to make money to survive.
Platform point 2, Water:
How is returning responsibility for setting the city’s water rates to elected officials going to prevent onerous increases? You’re not even sitting in office and you’re already proposing tax increases on the middle class. At least at this point, the water rates are sort of set with the notion of supply and demand. If/when elected officials get involved, it will be viewed as a simple tax.
Platform point 3, minimum wage:· Fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour will destroy the middle class economy. The myth otherwise has been debunked a long time ago.
Platform point 4, minimum wage: tax on millionaires to generate revenue: another idiotic idea. in the entire state, there are less than 53,000 millionaires (by income, 2/2011). in the entire state, the increase in state income will be negligible, while encouraging the continuing “Millionair Flight” from NY.
Platform point 5: Beer
Might be a good idea (not sure if its a “platform” idea). At this point there’s no correlation between drunk driving and buying beer at a gas station (as far as my limited research goes).
just another tax and spender
· Introducing legislation to give reduced fare MetroCards to food stamp recipients
Why? How will this help them lessen their reliance on food stamps?
· Returning responsibility for setting the city’s water rates to elected officials to prevent onerous increases
Just like the elected officials prevent onerous increases in tolls, and other city fines and fees. Yeah, good one!
· Fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing future increases to inflation.
Speak to the small business owners in the district you want to represent to see how it will affect them.
· Promoting a reasonable tax on millionaires to generate revenue and provide needed programs for district residents
He is proposing to tax the districts millionaires to create programs in the district?
· Introducing legislation to fight drunk driving by banning the sale of cold beer at gas stations
Maybe, but it is pretty clear that we can not legislate against stupidity.