Nassau Fiscal Crisis

Nassau Count has found them selves in a major financial crisis. Nassau is now in A 3 billion dollar debt. It is now the job of officials from both parties to help get Nassau get out of this debt. This was a major issue in the local elections this year with both parties were blaming each other for the problem. Tom Suozzi won the election for the county executive and now the problem rests on his shoulders. There are many plans to help get Nassau out of this problem but there not sure which one will work. There are a couple of major questions on this topic. They are, were did the money go? and how are the newley elected officials going to get Nassau out of this sinkhole. This has caused many to speculate how the republicans have run our county for the last years. the democrats feel this is their chance to show how to run the county.

Nassau has found them selves in a $3 billon dollar debt and no one knows were the money has gone. It could be the high salaries of police officers or is it that the politicians are pocketing the money.

                There is one major difference between the republican and Democratic Party on this issue. The Republican Party believes that the only way to get out of this crisis would be to raise taxes. They have proposed plans to raise taxes that would effect homeowners greatly. This would be a 15% tax increase costing homeowners around 150 to 170 dollars a month.(Newsday dec.10) This was a plan thought up by Thomas Gullota who was Nassau's former county executive. The people weren't to fond of this but republicans claim it is the only way out of this sinkhole. The democrats on the other hand have another plan. The democrats believe there is another way around this problem, which would be cutting jobs. Tom Suozzi has asked 140 town members to resign from their jobs.(Newsday dec.12) He would also like to cut the pay of cops but that would never happen. The democrats believe if the top officials of the town resign their pay will help get Nassau County out of the sinkhole there are so deeply in. The only thing these two parties can agree on is that something has to be done about this problem. The people of Nassau county are upset and have the right to know what happened to the money and have the right to have something done. The local government has to get involved greatly.

They have to devise a plan to get Nassau out of this debt. Tom Suozzi now has to fix the problem tom Gullota left for the county and he has a long road ahead of him. This is also the government's fault they played a huge role in getting Nassau county into this debt in the first place. Tom Gullota must have mad some bad decisions when he was in office to get the richest county in America in debt. They're not in a small debt either there in a 3 billion dollar debt.

        The people of Nassau County are greatly affected by this problem. First off there taxes are going to be raised as the local government has just passed a 15% tax raise for Nassau county residents.(Newsday.com) This tax raise will cost homeowners 150 to 170 dollars a month. The people are not too happy about this. Especially around the holidays when people need money for gifts and parties they will now be forced to pay more due to the mistakes of our local government. The people will also have to deal with losses of jobs. Top town members making good money will now be asked to resign from their position so there pays can be used to fix the crisis. Family now around the holidays will have to deal with this there husbands being laidoff. People who have dedicated their lives to working for the town and helping the town prosper are now going to loose their jobs while people like Suozzi are getting paid nicely. People like tom Gullotta who has made a great amount of money over the years will sit home with his money these holidays with his family enjoying everything and some families will be struggling to bring the holidays to their kids. How much is this going to help the county there has been people saying that the county is corrupt and the money is going right into the politician's pockets. Now we will see when our County is inn 3 billion-dollar debt if the tax raises and the job cuts actually help. If it doesn't maybe the politicians are taking the money and when will they stop if they are. The people deserve better then this in Nassau county people pay high taxes as it is now because of the government in Nassau County the people will pay higher taxes. Tom Suozzi better get his act together and get Nassau back to wear it was because the people aren't hearing it. There have been some protests outside buildings in Nassau showing the peoples dislike of what is going on in Nassau.

        The Republican Party has had some major looses in the election this year due to the current fiscal crisis. The Republican Party has ruled Nassau County for years now but now the democrats came up with some major victories. Also Tom Gullota did not run for County executive because he knew he would loose especially due to the current situation of Nassau. So tom Suozzi ran for the Democratic Party and won. This being one of the more major victories for the democrats. The republicans lost many other offices which they have held for a long time. Tom Souzzi now has to clean up the meets he was elected to do the job. Tom has promised a better Nassau county and has promised to clean up the mess the republicans have left behind quickly and efficiently. The republicans claim it is not there fault and that the democrats have also contributed to the mess.(Gullota PressRelase) The republicans don't know why they lost allot of the offices this year they say they were doing a efficient job with Nassau county. The democrats said they are pleased with the turnouts of the elections and know that the people will be pleased with what they chose. They believe they have the answers to the problems and keeping the republicans in charge would have just made the problem worse and it never would have gotten solved. The democrats now have the ball in their court and can prove to Long Island that they are the right chose to be in charge. They can take Nassau from this sinkhole they are in and make Nassau back in to the rich Counties it was and is suppose to be.

        So Tom Suozzi is now asking these people to resign from there jobs to help the County. he wants these people to resign because if they do they will not get their pension or unemployment the are suppose to get. If they do not resign and are fired they get there pension and everything else there are suppose to get. So the workers are not going to resign which is a huge problem for tom Souzzi. They are saying go ahead and fire us if we don't resign we don't care were going to get our money at least. So the only other plan they had was to raise taxes 15% which now has been changed to 9% which should go into affect in 2002 or 2003 so what is tom Souzzi going to do now.(Newsday.com) He has to come up with another plan to help Nassau out, as of now there are no signs of another plan. Tom Souzzi has said he has other plans to help Nassau but he hasn't come out with any yet. The desired outcome for both these parties is obviously to get this problem solved. Is that actually? what there out for. They want their party to look better then the other they don't want to look like the ones who caused the problem they want to look like the ones who saved the County and solved the problem. Both parties have made it clear they want to save Nassau and both parties have made it clear they don't like each other.

Threw out the whole situation both parties have badmouthed each other to make the others look bad.Also during the elections it was even worse ion every statement one party would bad mouth the other. So they are defiantly trying to solve this problem but there are also defiantly trying to look good for up coming elections. By bad mouthing the other party and by coming up with ways to solve this problem they are trying to get voters to vote for there party and candidates so they can run Nassau for a long time.

        Now tom Souzzi and the rest of the democrats are looking for the perfect solution to this problem also the republicans are to but lower key not many people hear about what they are doing. As of now they have the tax raise which will go into affect next year but besides that nothing else is going on. They are looking for that one plan that comes up that they can use to solve all the problems at once. This is a hard thing to fix it isn't that easy they have to find away to get the money back but do it legally. They are also trying to keep the people happy. The on thing that is not keeping people happy is the fireing of many county workers. These people have been loyal to the town for a long time now an now they just want them to resign. The town workers aren't having it they have decided to just let the higher politicians to just fire them. This way then can still get their benefits and everythign else. Tom Souzzi wanted them to resign because if they resign then the County doesn't have to pay for anything like their benefits and pension. This money could be used to help get Nassau get out of this debt. So they now only have one solution which wouldn't go into affect untill next year and they have no back up plan if this doesn't work.

Tom Souzzi has his hands full and he is going to have to think of something quick because the state of Nassau county isn't that good.

                How corrupt is the Nassau government? as tom o'rilely said "as long as there is government there will be government corruption." (o'rileey 147) so were did the money go many politicos say it was the high wages of Nassau police officers and teachers. But that comes out of the mouth of many republicans. From the democratic side they are saying that it was bad judgment and bad running of the government on the republicans part. The democrats claim the republicans didn't know how to budget their money and made crucial mistakes as they headed Nassau government for many years. Nassau claims they did make some mistakes but because of the Nassau police and their high wages they had to pay them do to contracts it helped cause the problem. The question us did the money ends up in the pockets of the politicians or is that just a myth. Even though many people do think that the politicians have been taking home a few dollars to their family there is no proof but with most government corruption scams the evidence would be well covered up. Tom Gullota has had a stigma placed around him as a corrupt political figure. He is being blamed for most of the problems Nassau is in he is also being blamed by the people for taking money. He is not a well like man in Nassau County. But with no proof how can anyone blame the government for stealing money. They cant they can belive what they want but with no proof their stuck. So is Nassau government corrupt? who knows all the people know is that there stuck in a sinkhole which is going to end up costing them even more money by having to pay higher taxes and there not to happy about it. So the people will have to deal with it for now unless more info come up about the politician being corrupt.

                        Nassau County is a major financial whole. The Democratic Party and tom Suozzi are now in the driver seat and have to figure out away to solve the problem. The republicans left in office must also help but they are going to also try to look like the good guy. The people of Nassau aren't going to be happy with the way our Government is going about this but their re going to have to solve the problems the Government caused. The people still want to know what happened to the money, which no one knows for shore. Tom Souzzi and everyone else in office realizes they have a long road ahead of them and they are willing to wait the long trip out. They want to make shore the people get what they deserve. For the question of were the money went no one really knows. the money could have just been budgeted wrong or it could have been stolen by people in office. No one will ever really know unless clues pop up or someone speaks out about it. The money could have just gone to the wrong funds and thinks like that and the politicians just did a bad job. All we know is that something has to be done and something has to be done quickly. If this isn't taking car of then the problem could get Worse and were and god knows what could happen to the status of Nassau county. The people are getting restless and are sick of hearing about this problem in the news so tom Souzzi and his team better get Nassau back on track as soon as he can. If he doesn't no one knows how the people will respond and were Nassau county will be headed it could be headed for the dumpster. Tom Gulotta couldn't get the job done for the sake of the people and the sake of nassau county I hope that tom Souzzi and the rest of the Government gets Nassau back to were it belongs on top.