'Twas Robin Hood Shot the Arrow
That Struck the $32 Billion Target,
But Who'll Be Left to Pay the Bill?

By Henry J. Stern
December 3, 2004

In Wednesday's column, we pointed out that there was no money available to pay for the massive increases in education spending demanded by Judge Leland DeGrasse's panel of establishment retirees (I'm one, too). Reaction from our readers has been very favorable. Your opinion is welcome; just e-mail us. The column was printed in Thursday's Sun, for readers who enjoy the credibility that comes with newsprint.

The Sun carried two other important items on the topic Thursday which we believe you should know about and understand. The first is a front page editorial, "Robin Hood." If any of you knew the facts revealed here before reading the editorial, you probably also knew all about the Local Conditional Release Commission before its selective amnesties became public. We have republished the story below.

The second is the lead story, "Huge Tax Hikes Ahead If School Plan Is Enacted," by William F. Hammond Jr., the Albany reporter for the Sun. It, too, contains juicy facts which you have not read elsewhere.

Robin Hood

New York Sun Staff Editorial
December 2, 2004

As New York State politicians plot to raise taxes on New Yorkers to cover the tens of billions in additional funds that a court-appointed panel is recommending for New York City's public schools, someone needs to take a look at the role in this scandal of a supposedly altruistic institution called the Robin Hood Foundation. It is the not-for-profit organization that has veered into New York State and City politics by providing much of the seed money for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the litigation group through which Fernando Ferrer has sought to do so much of what he failed to gain a mandate for at the polls.

The Robin Hood Foundation turns out to be a large and long-standing funder of the CFE. In 1998, for example, the Robin Hood Foundation provided $225,000 of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity's $660,000 budget. Over the five years between 1998 and 2002, the Robin Hood Foundation poured a total of $700,000 into the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, according to the grant lists included in the Robin Hood Foundation's tax returns.

And who is behind the Robin Hood Foundation? Its founder is Paul Tudor Jones II. Mr. Jones lives in Greenwich, Conn., where his Tudor Investment Corporation is based. A second board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, Steven A. Cohen, is also a Greenwich-based money manager. Another board member of the Robin Hood Foundation is Richard L. Chilton, Jr., whose Chilton Investment Company Inc. is based in Stamford, Conn. Mr. Chilton himself resides in Darien.

We don't doubt that Messrs. Jones, Cohen, and Chilton are well-intentioned (so, by some stretch, was the Sheriff of Nottingham). Their Robin Hood Foundation does some praiseworthy work in assisting charter schools in New York. But if they are going to fund litigation to increase taxes on New Yorkers, the least they can do is emerge from the tax-haven that is Connecticut and come to New York for more than just charity fund-raisers. They could stay here and pay the New York taxes themselves rather than situating themselves and their businesses in the comparatively low-tax pastures of the Nutmeg state.

Then there is Bill Gates. He also turns out to be implicated in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. His Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $250,000 to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity in 2003. Mr. Gates, who lives near Microsoft Corp. in the Seattle area, is the richest man in America. If he wants to lobby or litigate for higher taxes in Washington State, it is fine with us. But New Yorkers are going to resent it when out-of-state billionaires fund litigation here in the New York to raise taxes that the out-of-state billionaires themselves aren't going to have to pay.

Particularly when it turns out that the out-of-state tycoons are conspiring to ram through by litigation the agenda of a politician who actually lost a free and fair mayoral election in New York City. Mr. Ferrer couldn't even win the Democratic primary. He is a member of the board of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, and his political consultant, Luis Miranda, is the chairman of the CFE's board. In other words, the CFE is in effect a vehicle for carrying out Mr. Ferrer's far-left political agenda through means other than the ballot box.

It is an amazing thing that is going on in New York. Mr. Ferrer couldn't win in a democratic election. The voters didn't want to raise taxes to fund government run schools so extravagantly that they will end up costing three times more than the parochial schools, which get better results. So Mr. Ferrer, with the backing of Connecticut and Washington state billionaires who are ineligible to vote in New York elections and live beyond the reach of New York State tax authorities, has managed to use litigation to carry out an end run around the voters of New York and raid New Yorkers' threadbare wallets. All in the name of Robin Hood.