Tuesday, December 29, 2015
My jurisdictional statement in appeal of suspension of my law license (state court)
For those who are interested in the law and the facts surrounding my suspension from the practice of law, here is my jurisdictional statement and motions to recuse and disqualify filed with the New York State Court of Appeals in the constitutional appeal of suspension of my law license.
Disciplinary attorney Mary Gasparini proves she is corrupt as she stalls disciplinary investigation of disbarring misconduct of politically connected attorneys Richard Harlem, Eric Jervis and James Hartmann
At the end of November, a disciplinary complaint was filed against politically connected and powerful attorneys:
1) Richard Harlem, of Oneonta, NY, son of late Supreme Court Justice Robert Harlem, former Chief Administrative Judge of New York State 6th Judicial District;
2) Richard Harlem's law partner Eric Jervis, also of Oneonta, NY;
3) James Hartmann, of Delhi, NY, husband to attorney Nancy Deming, law clerk to judge-elect Gary Rosa of Delaware County Family Court.
The complaint was accompanied with an affidavit from a witness other than the complainant proving that the above three attorneys committed fraud and fraud upon the court that warrant their disbarment.
During a month that followed, no attempts were made by the disciplinary committee to call the complainant (not me) to investigate, or to verify the essence of the affidavit with its author.
Which brings me to the conclusion that attorney Mary Gasparini of the disciplinary committee who was the addressee of the complaint, is trying hard to earn her salary as a gatekeeper of discipline against powerful attorneys and as a fabricator of evidence to pull law licenses of critics of judicial misconduct.
And, according to my information, Richard Harlem is lying low and is refusing to engage in communication with the person who he has been claiming as a client for 8.5 years in proceedings in two courts, Delaware County Supreme Court and the Appellate Division 3rd Department.
Actually, in the Appellate Division 3rd Department Richard Harlem, his law firm Harlem & Jervis and, thus, his partner Eric Jervis, continue their fraud upon the court, as they continue to claim that they represent the person who already submitted an affidavit (which is the basis of the disciplinary complaint) that he never hired Harlem to represent him in the Mokay action.
Richard Harlem, Eric Jervis and James Hartmann did not even notify the Delaware County Supreme Court or the Appellate Division 3rd Department where Mr. Neroni's appeal is pending, that one of the alleged Mokay plaintiffs provided an affidavit that was submitted to the disciplinary committee claiming that the individal has never sued my husband Frederick J. Neroni, nor did that individual hire Richard Harlem or his law firms to sue him.
That is the height of "frivolous" and fraudulent conduct, and is a crime.
Yet, Mary Gasparini is not doing anything that an honest investigator and prosecutor would have done to verify the essence of the complaint.
Predictably so.
When a prosecutor is caught fabricating court transcript and lashes back at the person she prosecutes asking the court to put that person in jail for exposing her misconduct, one cannot expect that a dishonest prosecutor will suddenly develop a conscience and do her job honestly.
1) Richard Harlem, of Oneonta, NY, son of late Supreme Court Justice Robert Harlem, former Chief Administrative Judge of New York State 6th Judicial District;
2) Richard Harlem's law partner Eric Jervis, also of Oneonta, NY;
3) James Hartmann, of Delhi, NY, husband to attorney Nancy Deming, law clerk to judge-elect Gary Rosa of Delaware County Family Court.
The complaint was accompanied with an affidavit from a witness other than the complainant proving that the above three attorneys committed fraud and fraud upon the court that warrant their disbarment.
During a month that followed, no attempts were made by the disciplinary committee to call the complainant (not me) to investigate, or to verify the essence of the affidavit with its author.
Which brings me to the conclusion that attorney Mary Gasparini of the disciplinary committee who was the addressee of the complaint, is trying hard to earn her salary as a gatekeeper of discipline against powerful attorneys and as a fabricator of evidence to pull law licenses of critics of judicial misconduct.
And, according to my information, Richard Harlem is lying low and is refusing to engage in communication with the person who he has been claiming as a client for 8.5 years in proceedings in two courts, Delaware County Supreme Court and the Appellate Division 3rd Department.
Actually, in the Appellate Division 3rd Department Richard Harlem, his law firm Harlem & Jervis and, thus, his partner Eric Jervis, continue their fraud upon the court, as they continue to claim that they represent the person who already submitted an affidavit (which is the basis of the disciplinary complaint) that he never hired Harlem to represent him in the Mokay action.
Richard Harlem, Eric Jervis and James Hartmann did not even notify the Delaware County Supreme Court or the Appellate Division 3rd Department where Mr. Neroni's appeal is pending, that one of the alleged Mokay plaintiffs provided an affidavit that was submitted to the disciplinary committee claiming that the individal has never sued my husband Frederick J. Neroni, nor did that individual hire Richard Harlem or his law firms to sue him.
That is the height of "frivolous" and fraudulent conduct, and is a crime.
Yet, Mary Gasparini is not doing anything that an honest investigator and prosecutor would have done to verify the essence of the complaint.
Predictably so.
When a prosecutor is caught fabricating court transcript and lashes back at the person she prosecutes asking the court to put that person in jail for exposing her misconduct, one cannot expect that a dishonest prosecutor will suddenly develop a conscience and do her job honestly.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Will Delaware County be introduced to the modern word of public bidding on contracts?
Here is the interview report I received from the New York State Comptroller's Office of Delaware County Supervisor Wayne Marshfield who is also on the board of directors of the county's largest no-bid contractor Delaware Opportunities, Inc., see my blog about other Delaware County Supervisors on that board of directors here.
According to Mr. Marshfield, Delaware County includes no-bid contracts into its annual budgets, thus, in Mr. Marshfield's opinion, eliminating the need to bid out contracts and to separately make decisions on the choice of vendors for services.
And, contracts are not even discussed by the entire legislature of the County, only by "committees", so the County actually never does its job in approving contracts, with or without bidding!
A brilliant scheme, isn't it?
In home economics class, in middle school, they teach to form family budget this way:
(1) ascertain your needs,
(2) assess how much (approximately) your needs will cost (from a market survey of several different vendors) and
(3) ascertain how much money you have, available and coming in in the immediate income or what can be obtained in loans.
Middle schoolers are not taught to first find a vendor you know who will give you the highest price and then build your needs and price your budget in accordance with the prices of that vendor.
You will not do that to your family, because for your family you would want the best service for the lowest available price.
Not so in Delaware County.
In Delaware County, "committees" of local government officials (who also sit on boards of vendors) determine the needs and put them into the budget of the County based on the prices quoted by the no-bid contractors that the County used for allegedly 30 years.
The problem is also that over 30 years, prices for goods and services changed dramatically, information technologies, such as Internet, made information about out-of-state goods and services readily available.
Therefore, the claim that Delaware County is a "large area with small population and few economic resources" which is touted by Delaware County officials as a justification of its 30-year practice of no-bid contracts, is not only a lie, but a stupid lie at that.
The Internet has made the entire world, including vendors from other counties, other states and other countries available for bidding on Delaware County contracts, and the price of submitting Delaware County contracts to bidding is the price of posting the bidding requirements on the existing Delaware County website - which is nothing, since it will have to be done by the already existing salaried employees.
Who knows, maybe it is cheaper to transport goods and services from China or deliver them electronically over the Internet to fit Delaware County needs for services, rather than to use taxpayer money to pay friends and relatives of members of the Delaware County government.
I understand that Delaware County needs to be introduced to the modern world, and it is a matter of time when an out of the area would-be vendor will sue the county for the opportunity to bid for its appropriation contracts.
After all, New York State Comptroller, as of July of 2014, in his report on public contracts stated the following:
And:
Delaware County should take notice.
I will continue to FOIL Delaware County as to its contracting practices and report it on this blog. Stay tuned.
According to Mr. Marshfield, Delaware County includes no-bid contracts into its annual budgets, thus, in Mr. Marshfield's opinion, eliminating the need to bid out contracts and to separately make decisions on the choice of vendors for services.
And, contracts are not even discussed by the entire legislature of the County, only by "committees", so the County actually never does its job in approving contracts, with or without bidding!
A brilliant scheme, isn't it?
In home economics class, in middle school, they teach to form family budget this way:
(1) ascertain your needs,
(2) assess how much (approximately) your needs will cost (from a market survey of several different vendors) and
(3) ascertain how much money you have, available and coming in in the immediate income or what can be obtained in loans.
Middle schoolers are not taught to first find a vendor you know who will give you the highest price and then build your needs and price your budget in accordance with the prices of that vendor.
You will not do that to your family, because for your family you would want the best service for the lowest available price.
Not so in Delaware County.
In Delaware County, "committees" of local government officials (who also sit on boards of vendors) determine the needs and put them into the budget of the County based on the prices quoted by the no-bid contractors that the County used for allegedly 30 years.
The problem is also that over 30 years, prices for goods and services changed dramatically, information technologies, such as Internet, made information about out-of-state goods and services readily available.
Therefore, the claim that Delaware County is a "large area with small population and few economic resources" which is touted by Delaware County officials as a justification of its 30-year practice of no-bid contracts, is not only a lie, but a stupid lie at that.
The Internet has made the entire world, including vendors from other counties, other states and other countries available for bidding on Delaware County contracts, and the price of submitting Delaware County contracts to bidding is the price of posting the bidding requirements on the existing Delaware County website - which is nothing, since it will have to be done by the already existing salaried employees.
Who knows, maybe it is cheaper to transport goods and services from China or deliver them electronically over the Internet to fit Delaware County needs for services, rather than to use taxpayer money to pay friends and relatives of members of the Delaware County government.
I understand that Delaware County needs to be introduced to the modern world, and it is a matter of time when an out of the area would-be vendor will sue the county for the opportunity to bid for its appropriation contracts.
After all, New York State Comptroller, as of July of 2014, in his report on public contracts stated the following:
And:
Delaware County should take notice.
I will continue to FOIL Delaware County as to its contracting practices and report it on this blog. Stay tuned.
Delaware County taxes and property foreclosures feed its 30-year no-bid inflated contracts to family and friends of local government officials
Delaware County Supervisor Marjorie Miller told in the interview to New York State Comptroller's auditor that two contracts made by Delaware County may have been given to friends of the multi-year Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors Mr. Eisel, one, an overpriced contract to a coroner, and another, a contract for the lease of the Treadwell school building.
That is what I know from public records.
What I also know from the same set of documents received from the NYS Comptroller's office that for years, Delaware County employees were not asked to sign conflict of interest disclosures, while for over 30 years Delaware County engaged in a one vendor per service no-bid contracting "system", renewable automatically without public input and without input by the entire legislature, by the Board of Supervisors' "committees" alone.
Moreover, Marjorie Miller said in her interview that oftentimes she was requested to approve budgets without seeing them.
So, Marjorie Miller already spotted the overpriced contract of the County with the coroner (Dr. Ucci, I believe), who Marjorie Miller identified as a friend of the Delaware County Board of Supervisors Mr. Eisel.
Lack of competition in contracts and lack of disclosures of conflicts of interests for 30 years, in a county best characterized as "a land of kissing cousins", where no no-nepotism (prohibition on hiring relatives) policy in employment exists, must necessarily lead to overpriced public contracts.
Those public contracts are financed by you, ladies and gentlemen, taxpayers of Delaware County.
Each year for those 30 years while running those no-bid contracts, Delaware County foreclosed on delinquent county-tax taxpayers and took many homes from Delaware County property owners.
Recently, Delaware County Department of Social Services Commissioner William Moon was caught in buying up such a foreclosed property through his wife who has a different last name.
I wonder how many more of those buy-ups existed over the years of no-bid contracts, but Mr. Moon, apparently relying on his connections in the government and, likely, on the contracts to influential people he distributed over the years, escaped criminal and civil liability for his misconduct.
He only very quickly resigned, as did Judge Carl Becker, who was the legal advisor of Commissioner Moon for many years while the no-bid contract system was in existence and knew his many secrets, if not participated in Moon's little "inside trading" in real estate foreclosed by the County and in doling out contracts to family and friends.
It is my firm belief that support by the well-known corrupt judge Becker derailed judicial election campaign of his student, colleague and subordinate, now County Attorney Porter Kirkwood in the past judicial elections to the Family Court seat this year.
I wonder if property owners whose properties were foreclosed over the period of 30 years will now start questioning propriety of foreclosures to feed the corrupt inflated budgets of Delaware County that was made to accommodate inflated contract prices to family and friends of Delaware County government officials - under the guise of "helping" Delaware County in foregoing public bidding, because Delaware County has "small population" and "lacks economic resources" to verify whether contracts for services paid for with taxpayers' money, are provided at the best available prices.
That is what I know from public records.
What I also know from the same set of documents received from the NYS Comptroller's office that for years, Delaware County employees were not asked to sign conflict of interest disclosures, while for over 30 years Delaware County engaged in a one vendor per service no-bid contracting "system", renewable automatically without public input and without input by the entire legislature, by the Board of Supervisors' "committees" alone.
Moreover, Marjorie Miller said in her interview that oftentimes she was requested to approve budgets without seeing them.
So, Marjorie Miller already spotted the overpriced contract of the County with the coroner (Dr. Ucci, I believe), who Marjorie Miller identified as a friend of the Delaware County Board of Supervisors Mr. Eisel.
Lack of competition in contracts and lack of disclosures of conflicts of interests for 30 years, in a county best characterized as "a land of kissing cousins", where no no-nepotism (prohibition on hiring relatives) policy in employment exists, must necessarily lead to overpriced public contracts.
Those public contracts are financed by you, ladies and gentlemen, taxpayers of Delaware County.
Each year for those 30 years while running those no-bid contracts, Delaware County foreclosed on delinquent county-tax taxpayers and took many homes from Delaware County property owners.
Recently, Delaware County Department of Social Services Commissioner William Moon was caught in buying up such a foreclosed property through his wife who has a different last name.
I wonder how many more of those buy-ups existed over the years of no-bid contracts, but Mr. Moon, apparently relying on his connections in the government and, likely, on the contracts to influential people he distributed over the years, escaped criminal and civil liability for his misconduct.
He only very quickly resigned, as did Judge Carl Becker, who was the legal advisor of Commissioner Moon for many years while the no-bid contract system was in existence and knew his many secrets, if not participated in Moon's little "inside trading" in real estate foreclosed by the County and in doling out contracts to family and friends.
It is my firm belief that support by the well-known corrupt judge Becker derailed judicial election campaign of his student, colleague and subordinate, now County Attorney Porter Kirkwood in the past judicial elections to the Family Court seat this year.
I wonder if property owners whose properties were foreclosed over the period of 30 years will now start questioning propriety of foreclosures to feed the corrupt inflated budgets of Delaware County that was made to accommodate inflated contract prices to family and friends of Delaware County government officials - under the guise of "helping" Delaware County in foregoing public bidding, because Delaware County has "small population" and "lacks economic resources" to verify whether contracts for services paid for with taxpayers' money, are provided at the best available prices.
"Community services" contracts in Delaware County, NY are automatically renewed by Chairman Eisel for years, and no new contractors are sought
If any of the residents of Delaware County, NY, would refuse to pay County taxes, his or her home will be taken by the County in foreclosure.
Yet, after taking his taxes, the County is engaged in distributing taxpayer money to the same "vendors" of services for 30 years, without any oversight.
Here is yet another example of it, received by me from the NYS Comptroller's office on a FOIL request (Delaware County stalled my FOIL request for the same records).
So - "Cindy ... was not aware of any fraud, misconduct or abuse in her department". Renewing contracts without bidding and seeking no new vendors is not "fraud, misconduct or abuse" in "Cindy's" mind. Because if Cindy starts asking questions of proppriety and legality as to what she, Mr. Eisel and County attorney Porter Kirkwood are doing - she will no longer be employed by Delaware County.
The tribal system of contract distribution should end, otherwise your county taxes exacted out of you at the threat of foreclosure on your home, are going to overpriced services of friends and relatives of the Delaware County government.
The tribal 30-year automatic-renewal contract system in Delaware County, NY
I wrote in this blog previously about public documents I received from the NYS Comptroller's office pertaining to its audit of Delaware County and its no-bid contracts.
In the previous blog, the interview of Supervisor Miller revealed certain specific improprieties in contracts: specifically, that a contract with the coroner was at inflated prices because the coroner was Mr. Eisel's (Board Chairman's) friend, and improprieties regarding contracts about the Treadwell school buildings, for the same reason, because the dealings were with Mr. Eisel's friends.
I did not see anything in the records of audit provided to me by the NYS Comptroller's office indicating that the NYS Comptroller continued its investigation into that direction, but I saw claims that "no abuse or fraud were found" in other departments, after a statement that contracts were not bid to the public, as they were supposed to.
I continue to post public records provided to me by the NYS Comptroller's office.
Here is the report of the interview from the Department for the aging.
So, "the department has many contracts with various agencies in the area". Yet, there is no disclosure, what kind of "agencies" exist in the area that have contracts with Delaware County, while Supervisor Miller already disclosed in her interview how contracts are being done - through friendship with Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Eisel.
By the way, I did not see anywhere in the report that disclosures by Mr. Eisel were made about contracting the County business to his friends.
The next thing is the lack of bidding.
The explanation is hilarious - yet somehow swallowed by the NYS Comptroller's office.
The declared reasons for not bidding contracts publicly and for striking deals for those contracts with friends behind closed doors at inflated prices, are as follows:
Wow.
The County supervisors obviously do not get through their heads that the "small population" and the "lack of economic resources" adds up to a "small population OF not-so-wealthy TAXPAYERS" requiring the County to engage in efforts to save every penny wherever possible, and the only mechanism to do that is through public bidding of contracts.
The interview reflects that Delaware County did not bid out contracts FOR 30 YEARS.
That means that public contracts were bid before - apparently, before the largest contractor of Delaware County, the Delaware Opportunities, Inc. was established, where supervisors participate as board members (and likely get favors from subcontractors of services).
So, while economists say that competition is good for lowering prices and diversifying services, Delaware County says that a 30-year monopoly of one vendor per type of contract is good for Delaware County taxpayers - because there are not a lot of them and because they are poor.
In fact, because there are not a lot of taxpayers and because they are poor, Delaware County hopes that taxpayers will not have enough clout to sue the County and its supervisors for fraud and abuse that NYS Comptroller's auditors may have been paid not to find - otherwise they could not, in good faith, find "no fraud and abuse" without even pursuing the leads given in those same interviews.
We are not talking pennies here.
We are talking millions of dollars in contracts which are habitually, over the period of 30 years, being awarded to the same vendors, without bidding, in a county with "small population" that "lacks economic resources"!
"Budgeted appropriations" in 2014 alone were 129 million dollars and none of them - none! - were bid to the public!
I bet that the County could get a lot more services for that budget had it bid those appropriations out.
Maybe, then, the County government would have found out that over 30 years things change, new people are born and grow into adulthood or come into the area who can provide new services, new technologies develop, and it is not appropriate to automatically renew contracts given 30 years ago to the same bidder, obviously based on some "friendly" connections to officials within the Delaware County government.
I lived in Delaware County for 17 years.
My husband lived in Delaware County for over 40 years.
Both of us practiced law in the county for a long time, my husband longer than me, and through bits and pieces, through statements of clients, friends and acquaintances and through occasional documents provided in discovery in court cases, we came to the conclusion long time ago that Delaware County government is not a democratic entity - it is a tribal entity.
Relatives and friends are hired throughout the County, the County does not have an anti-nepotism policy, and I am sure that the no-bid contracting system is as tribal as the County employment policies.
If you ask that question directly under FOIL - to list all relatives and friends working in the County, you will not get any information, because such information is not "FOIL-able".
I guess, legislation should be changed to change that. Because that information directly pertains to issues of public concern, to corruption and waste of taxpayer funds through 30-year no-bid automatically renewed contracts awarding taxpayer money - your money - to the select members of the tribe.
By the way, Delaware County still stalls me and refuses to show me those "automatically renewable" contracts.
I urge Delaware County taxpayers to demand disclosure of the names of the vendors and to publish those renewable contracts on the County website - and to announce public bidding.
The interesting question, to me, is - why NYS Comptroller did not expand its audit into the 30-year period and why it did not publish the names of the vendors?
Because of "scarce economic resources" of his office, or because his office was properly "motivated" by Delaware County?
No wonder New York is losing people to other states... The level of corruption is simply disgusting.
In the previous blog, the interview of Supervisor Miller revealed certain specific improprieties in contracts: specifically, that a contract with the coroner was at inflated prices because the coroner was Mr. Eisel's (Board Chairman's) friend, and improprieties regarding contracts about the Treadwell school buildings, for the same reason, because the dealings were with Mr. Eisel's friends.
I did not see anything in the records of audit provided to me by the NYS Comptroller's office indicating that the NYS Comptroller continued its investigation into that direction, but I saw claims that "no abuse or fraud were found" in other departments, after a statement that contracts were not bid to the public, as they were supposed to.
I continue to post public records provided to me by the NYS Comptroller's office.
Here is the report of the interview from the Department for the aging.
So, "the department has many contracts with various agencies in the area". Yet, there is no disclosure, what kind of "agencies" exist in the area that have contracts with Delaware County, while Supervisor Miller already disclosed in her interview how contracts are being done - through friendship with Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Eisel.
By the way, I did not see anywhere in the report that disclosures by Mr. Eisel were made about contracting the County business to his friends.
The next thing is the lack of bidding.
The explanation is hilarious - yet somehow swallowed by the NYS Comptroller's office.
The declared reasons for not bidding contracts publicly and for striking deals for those contracts with friends behind closed doors at inflated prices, are as follows:
- Delaware County's large size;
- Smallness of population;
- Lack of economic resources;
- County feels fortunate to find (how?) one vendor "within a reasonable geographic distance".
Wow.
The County supervisors obviously do not get through their heads that the "small population" and the "lack of economic resources" adds up to a "small population OF not-so-wealthy TAXPAYERS" requiring the County to engage in efforts to save every penny wherever possible, and the only mechanism to do that is through public bidding of contracts.
The interview reflects that Delaware County did not bid out contracts FOR 30 YEARS.
That means that public contracts were bid before - apparently, before the largest contractor of Delaware County, the Delaware Opportunities, Inc. was established, where supervisors participate as board members (and likely get favors from subcontractors of services).
So, while economists say that competition is good for lowering prices and diversifying services, Delaware County says that a 30-year monopoly of one vendor per type of contract is good for Delaware County taxpayers - because there are not a lot of them and because they are poor.
In fact, because there are not a lot of taxpayers and because they are poor, Delaware County hopes that taxpayers will not have enough clout to sue the County and its supervisors for fraud and abuse that NYS Comptroller's auditors may have been paid not to find - otherwise they could not, in good faith, find "no fraud and abuse" without even pursuing the leads given in those same interviews.
We are not talking pennies here.
We are talking millions of dollars in contracts which are habitually, over the period of 30 years, being awarded to the same vendors, without bidding, in a county with "small population" that "lacks economic resources"!
"Budgeted appropriations" in 2014 alone were 129 million dollars and none of them - none! - were bid to the public!
I bet that the County could get a lot more services for that budget had it bid those appropriations out.
Maybe, then, the County government would have found out that over 30 years things change, new people are born and grow into adulthood or come into the area who can provide new services, new technologies develop, and it is not appropriate to automatically renew contracts given 30 years ago to the same bidder, obviously based on some "friendly" connections to officials within the Delaware County government.
I lived in Delaware County for 17 years.
My husband lived in Delaware County for over 40 years.
Both of us practiced law in the county for a long time, my husband longer than me, and through bits and pieces, through statements of clients, friends and acquaintances and through occasional documents provided in discovery in court cases, we came to the conclusion long time ago that Delaware County government is not a democratic entity - it is a tribal entity.
Relatives and friends are hired throughout the County, the County does not have an anti-nepotism policy, and I am sure that the no-bid contracting system is as tribal as the County employment policies.
If you ask that question directly under FOIL - to list all relatives and friends working in the County, you will not get any information, because such information is not "FOIL-able".
I guess, legislation should be changed to change that. Because that information directly pertains to issues of public concern, to corruption and waste of taxpayer funds through 30-year no-bid automatically renewed contracts awarding taxpayer money - your money - to the select members of the tribe.
By the way, Delaware County still stalls me and refuses to show me those "automatically renewable" contracts.
I urge Delaware County taxpayers to demand disclosure of the names of the vendors and to publish those renewable contracts on the County website - and to announce public bidding.
The interesting question, to me, is - why NYS Comptroller did not expand its audit into the 30-year period and why it did not publish the names of the vendors?
Because of "scarce economic resources" of his office, or because his office was properly "motivated" by Delaware County?
No wonder New York is losing people to other states... The level of corruption is simply disgusting.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Occupational licensing hurts the U.S. economy - opting-out provisions to occupational licensing for individual consumers and their chosen providers are the easiest way to solve the problem
In July of 2015, the U.S. President's Department of the Treasury Office of Economic Policy, together with the Council of Economic Advisers, and the Department of Labor, published a report regarding the state of occupational licensing in the United States.
The report paints a very scary picture of what occupational licensing does to the economy of the U.S. and to people's livelihoods. I encourage my readers to read the report in full, it is quite interesting.
I especially encourage supporters of Bernie Sanders to read this report. Senator Sanders claims he will create jobs for average Americans if elected president. I do not know how he will fulfill that promise when over 25% (and, by other sources, over 30%) of the U.S. job force is regulated by state governments, over which the President has no control.
Here is a very illustrative paragraph from the report:
So, the federal government practically openly acknowledges that occupational licensing of professions by states which is always declared to be done in order to protect consumers of services, but is in reality lobbied by those same professions as a measure to restrict competition and keep prices of services higher than they are worth in a free market, in reality hurts the U.S. economy, hurts people and prevents them from having an ability to properly provide for their families and from obtaining services they need at affordable prices.
I wonder when the federal government will go further than stating the problem and what it will do to address it.
I already wrote in this blog about my position as a consumer of services that are licensed by the government: as a competent adult, I have a right of free choice of service providers for my personal use and for the use by my household and family.
If the government wants to give me help in verifying qualifications and quality of work of such providers, I have a right to say to the government - no, thank you, I do not need your help.
And, the government certainly has no right to punish me with a criminal record for "aiding and abetting" or "soliciting" "unauthorized practice" of a licensed profession because I rejected the government's help.
The opting-out provisions for individual consumers and their chosen providers to occupational licensing may undo this problem of the U.S. economy, and quite easily. And, such opting-out provisions will not hurt consumers who want occupational licensing to remain in place. People will simply have a choice - to go with a licensed or with an unlicensed provider, to accept or to reject help in verifying quality of services by the government.
It is very simple. When you are offered help, you can say - "no, thank you, I'll manage on my own". Even if the helper is the government.
The report paints a very scary picture of what occupational licensing does to the economy of the U.S. and to people's livelihoods. I encourage my readers to read the report in full, it is quite interesting.
I especially encourage supporters of Bernie Sanders to read this report. Senator Sanders claims he will create jobs for average Americans if elected president. I do not know how he will fulfill that promise when over 25% (and, by other sources, over 30%) of the U.S. job force is regulated by state governments, over which the President has no control.
Here is a very illustrative paragraph from the report:
I wonder when the federal government will go further than stating the problem and what it will do to address it.
I already wrote in this blog about my position as a consumer of services that are licensed by the government: as a competent adult, I have a right of free choice of service providers for my personal use and for the use by my household and family.
If the government wants to give me help in verifying qualifications and quality of work of such providers, I have a right to say to the government - no, thank you, I do not need your help.
And, the government certainly has no right to punish me with a criminal record for "aiding and abetting" or "soliciting" "unauthorized practice" of a licensed profession because I rejected the government's help.
The opting-out provisions for individual consumers and their chosen providers to occupational licensing may undo this problem of the U.S. economy, and quite easily. And, such opting-out provisions will not hurt consumers who want occupational licensing to remain in place. People will simply have a choice - to go with a licensed or with an unlicensed provider, to accept or to reject help in verifying quality of services by the government.
It is very simple. When you are offered help, you can say - "no, thank you, I'll manage on my own". Even if the helper is the government.
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