Neil deMause: The Website

If you’ve been dying to know what Congress’ economic stimulus package means for your Section 179 deductions, your prayers have been answered:

The Senate version of an economic stimulus bill, which could come to a vote this week, contains several tax provisions intended to benefit small businesses, including some not present in the House bill passed last week.

First and foremost, the Senate bill, proposed by Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would extend a helping hand to businesses facing large operating losses in either the 2006 or 2007 tax year, allowing them to write off those losses against gains as far as five years back, rather than the current two-year limit… [read more]

In the course of responding to the New Yorker’s problematic profile of Rudy Giuliani a couple of weeks ago (by Elizabeth Kolbert, who’s usually one of my favorite of their writers, but who usually sticks to environmental issues), I tackle the common belief that the sinking presidential candidate was a mastermind at tackling crime and welfare:

How will history judge Rudy Giuliani? With his presidential campaign (and political career) at a turning point in tomorrow’s Florida primary, it’s a question worth asking.

If there’s anything close to a journalistic consensus about Rudy’s reign as New York mayor, it’s something like what Elizabeth Kolbert expressed in a long New Yorker magazine profile of Giuliani earlier this month… [read more]

Washington, D.C., is considering a requirement that all city businesses provide paid sick leave to their employees; I take a look at the issue for Fortune Small Business, which, for obvious reasons, is mostly concerned with what this means for you, Al “Small Business Owner” Franken:

Washington, D.C., is moving forward with a bill that would make it the second city in the U.S. to require all businesses, including those with fewer than 10 employees, to provide paid sick leave for their staff.

With a city council vote on the “Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act” currently scheduled for Feb. 5, local businesses, worker advocates, and elected officials are locked in a debate over whether the measure would be a drain or a boon for small businesses… [read more]

The New York city council debate over whether to continue Madison Square Garden’s $11-million-a-year exemption from property taxes - which was supposed to end in 1992, but somebody forgot to write that into the legislation - has not exactly covered either side in glory:

t was a strange scene even by City Council standards: representatives of Madison Square Garden testifying last week that they should get to keep their perpetual tax exemption because the city is throwing so much money at its other sports teams — more than $1.3 billion, by their count — that the Knicks and Rangers might as well share in the boodle.

Arguing that “all the other kids are getting one” isn’t exactly new for sports teams in search of public subsidies; Rudy Giuliani, after all, once asserted the Yankees needed a new, city-built stadium to let them compete with the (no guffawing) Baltimore Orioles… [read more]

My regular Monday op-ed schedule resumes, with a look ahead to tonight’s public meeting on the future of Coney Island that manages to avoid using the term “shell game”:

The announcement reads “community information session,” but “Fireworks at Coney Island tonight!” might be just as appropriate. After all, tonight’s public meeting at Lincoln High School on the city’s rezoning plan for Brooklyn’s summer playground is a do-over: The last time the city tried this, in November, state Sen. Carl Kruger bused in so many bewildered Brighton Beach residents to testify against the plan that the police shut the whole thing down.

It was only the latest twist in the yearlong circus that began when Joe Sitt, the developer who’s bought up large swaths of Coney (including the land under Astroland amusement park), threatened to raze everything in sight if the city didn’t let him build condos on the boardwalk… [read more]

With Metro NY taking the last two Mondays off for the holidays, I get a special Wednesday op-ed slot today. The subject is appropriately holiday-themed: How attention to the poor disappears after Christmas, and what that means for those trying to provide food year-round:

With the holidays finally wrapping up, it’s time to mark the end of another season as well: the caring-about-poor-people season. Once the Christmas decorations come down, it’s once again safe to watch the news without fear of hearing about the plight of the homeless or of being asked to help out the hungry with a once-a-year turkey dinner… [read more]

And Metro seems to have figured out this Interweb thing now, so you can read it in sparkling HTML format! Woohoo!