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Any reasonable person can see that the Senecas are flouting the meaning of the law to gain financially.  Their scheme to hide income under the Indian Land Act is nothing more than a shell game.  This is 2007, it is time to end special treatment, especially for a group that continually shows no interest in being a part of the larger community unless there is a monetary interest. 

The Senecas maintain that the annual payments to members are not dividends, but annuities tied to the 1990 Seneca Settlement Act. They also maintain the payouts are not subject to federal taxes or the control of the National Indian Gaming Commission. Each Seneca member received a payment of $4,500 last year and $6,000 this year, according to the Senecas.

“These annuities are derived from the Nation’s Seneca Settlement Act funds,” Robert Odawi Power, the Senecas’ attorney, told members in the Seneca newsletter.

The News has disclosed that Seneca Gaming paid $16 million for land for the three casinos, and then sold those parcels to the Senecas, who made the purchases with a small portion of the tax-free settlement funds — $14 in Niagara Falls, $10 in Salamanca and $4 in Buffalo.

Seneca Gaming then pays the Senecas $31.2 million in rent for the casino properties, according to documents.

Valandra declined to confirm that is what his agency is investigating.

“At this point, the investigation is generally about the use of revenues, and that’s as much as I can say,” he said.

The national gaming commission requires each tribe to file a plan for distributing revenues to tribal members, and those payouts are taxable.

If the Senecas do not comply with the subpoena, Valandra said, lawyers from his agency will be in U.S. District Court in Buffalo next week seeking an order to turn over the records.

Philip J. Pantano, a spokesman for the Seneca Gaming Corp., which runs the Senecas’ gambling operations, said his company had not been subpoenaed.

“This is a government to government request, the federal government dealing with the sovereign government of the Seneca Nation,” he said. “Seneca Gaming Corp. is reviewing any gaming related information involved in that request.”

Source: Buffalo News: City & Region

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The New York court system’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics has concluded that judges should not recuse themselves from cases where state legislators or members of their firms are representing parties before them solely because of the “long-standing issue of judicial salary increases pending before the Legislature.”

As judicial morale sagged after the Legislature failed to enact a pay increase in December, several judges around the state began to take themselves off cases handled by legislators or members of their firms.

Read it all: Law.com - N.Y. Judges Advised Not to Link Recusals to Pay Dispute

ALBANY Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s $120.6 billion state budget proposal would increase spending “at an unsustainable rate” and leave New York with a whopping three-year budget gap of $13 billion, new state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Wednesday. While the new governor’s fellow Democrat praised Spitzer’s proposal as one that “takes a significant step toward budget reform,” DiNapoli said it simply would spend too much. “The $120.6 billion budget calls for increasing spending at two-and-a-half times the projected rate of inflation,” DiNapoli said. Under the Spitzer plan, state spending would rise by almost 8 percent. The budget proposal is for the state fiscal year that begins April 1 and final decisions about it rest with the state Legislature. The comptroller’s critical budget analysis came on the same day that several thousand people rallied outside the state Capitol, braving subfreezing temperatures to protest Spitzer’s proposals to trim more than $1 billion in health care spending.

Spitzer might not have been happy with DiNapoli as the State Comptroller, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize the Spitzer is spending when he should be cutting.
Source: wcbstv.com - New Comptroller Criticizes Spitzer’s Budget Plan

Back in January, the Democrats announced that Denver would host their 2008 nominating convention, in a nod to the fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters who helped deliver 2006’s Democratic victories in America’s libertarian Mountain West — including a Senate seat in Montana, two House seats in Arizona, and one House seat in Colorado. But a little bit more than a month later, it looks like this may be all that Democrats plan to do to attract these voters to the party in 2008.

The Democrats are making a huge mistake by snubbing the Libertarian vote. Check out a Libertarian view of the top Democratic candidates for 2008.

First, we have Senator Clinton, master of the big-government welfare state, with its price tag to be paid for with tax increases. Despite all her positioning as a centrist Democrat, she’s voted against repeals of the death tax and deficit reduction bills, as well as free trade legislation. She’s anti-gun with a vengeance and has an F rating from the NRA (a big no-no in the pro-gun West). And, of course, any libertarian voter who was paying attention during the 1990s still remembers and fears HillaryCare.

Then, we have the former senator from North Carolina, John Edwards. During his Senate days, he was one of the most fiscally conservative Democrats. But, since then, he’s jumped on the loony-Left bandwagon, bashing Wal-Mart, personally leading a new War on Poverty, and championing tax hikes and large-scale redistribution of wealth. He’s also no friend of gun owners, with his 2002 and 2003 77% ratings from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

And, finally, we have Senator Obama, the man who has served a grand total of two years in the Senate and in that time has voted against every notable bill that would cut taxes. He said during his 2004 campaign for Senate that he would roll back the Bush tax cuts. And, during that same campaign, his opponent blasted him for voting for hundreds of millions of dollars in tax increases and pushing costly new government programs. He also shares the distinction with Mrs. Clinton of an F rating from the NRA.

Libertarians, comprising about 13% of the vote nationally, can very well impact the outcome of elections. The leading Democratic candidates are about as appetizing as a bowl full of gruel.

Source: Libertarian Democrat Let-Down - New York Sun Politics

Technorati tags: libertarian, democrats, Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, John Edwards, votes, voters

And Governor Spitzer, the former anti-business State Attorney General, wants another $600 million/year from businesses. 

Businesses paid 45 percent of the taxes collected by state and local governments last year, according to a study by Ernst & Young and the Council on State Taxation.

State and local business taxes totaled $554 billion, up 10.2 percent from 2005. Business taxes have increased at a faster rate over the past four years than overall state and local taxes, the report notes.

Businesses create jobs that create wealth, Government doesn’t.  End of discussion.

Source: Business pays 45% of state, local taxes - Business First of Buffalo: