#tax accountant scarsdale

[shieldretired]

Headcanon: Financial Status

The army never declared him dead, only MIA, which is why, when Steve was found in 2011, he was entitled to 66 years of army back pay. Smarter people than me have crushed the numbers: The result is about $ 4,7 million, which Steve naturally tried to refuse because he couldn't even start to wrap his head around so much money. I'd like to think that both Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff made him accept it in the end, though he mostly parked it at a bank and tried to not look at it.

Working for SHIELD, he makes about $ 200,000 per year. (The average Navy SEAL makes about $ 100,000 a year, which is as close to what Steve was doing as it can get, though he's Captain America, of course, and thus is likely to earn more than that, plus I'd like to say SHIELD paid higher wages to keep its personnel from going back to military life.) The average cost of living in Washington, D.C., is around $ 78,000, though I'd like to think Steve needs less because he's very economical and also benefits from SHIELD housing and cheaper costs for food in the mess hall. So he might save up to $ 130,000 each year.

After the fall of SHIELD and working as an Avenger full-time, I think he made about the same yearly salary (paid by Tony Stark, presumably). 

Of course, he doesn't earn any money anymore during his time on the run, and his accounts are likely blocked because he's considered an enemy of the state. 

I'd like to say after infinity war and getting back on Avengers payroll (I don't like the whole counselor thing), he earns a bit less, since the snap will likely have caused a global economic depression. His paycheck will be about $ 150,000, probably, with expenses likely staying the same. 

So, when he finally retires in 2023, his bank account will hold about $ 5,675 million — minus buying his little house in Scarsdale and a new car/bike, he still has about $ 4,9 million left.

Now, the army pension is a little more complicated. For Soldiers who entered military service prior to September 8, 1980, retired pay is computed using 50% of basic pay after 20 years of service plus an additional 2.5% for each additional year. Again, Steve was MIA, so his time in the ice should count as years of service, in my opinion (or else he wouldn't have gotten any back pay). He joined the army in 1942, which means 69 years of service, so 49 additional years = 122,5 %, which means he'd get more in retirement than what he'd earn as an army captain 😂 I doubt the U.S. army would agree to that and would only get as high as the actual salary, which, for Steve's experience, is a basic pay of $ 7,900 per month.

Being a Medal of Honor recipient, he's also entitled to a special pension that is now (2023) about $1,600 per month.

All in all, this means he gets a monthly retirement check (minus about 20 % taxes) of $ 7,600. From the army. He might also get another pension from former SHIELD/being an Avenger? But that would be too much speculation now. I think it's safe to say he's doing well for himself now.

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Scarsdale St, Staten Island, New York Consumer Credit Counseling Service | (888) 551-1270

Scarsdale St, Staten Island, New York Free Consumer Credit Counseling Service call (888) 551-1270 Credit Repair, Bankruptcy Counseling, Foreclosure Prevention, Student Loan Debt Consolidation, Wage Garnishment and Vehicle Repossession solutions, Mortgage Loan Modification, and Debt Settlement through chapter 13. Scarsdale St, Staten Island, New York Credit counseling (888) 551-1270 starts with the parent and may include intermediaries later in life empowered by the individual debtor to act on their behalf to negotiate with creditors and resolve debt that is beyond a debtor’s ability to pay. Credit counseling is a generic name and is not a brand name owned or controlled by any agency or company.

Scarsdale St, Staten Island, New York Consumer credit counseling services (888) 551-1270 are provided by attorneys, accountants, finance and tax professionals, for-profit, and non-profit credit counseling companies. Regulations on credit counseling and credit counseling agencies varies by country and sometimes within regions of the countries themselves. In Scarsdale St, Staten Island, New York individuals filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy are required to receive counseling from a designated credit counseling agency.

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Scarsdale Way, San Jose California Consumer Credit Counseling Service | (888) 551-1270

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Scarsdale Way, San Jose California Consumer credit counseling services (888) 551-1270 are provided by attorneys, accountants, finance and tax professionals, for-profit, and non-profit credit counseling companies. Regulations on credit counseling and credit counseling agencies varies by country and sometimes within regions of the countries themselves. In Scarsdale Way, San Jose California individuals filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy are required to receive counseling from a designated credit counseling agency.

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Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Public Schools and Educational Inequality: Some Thoughts* (Part 1)

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Public Schools and Educational Inequality: Some Thoughts* (Part 1)

Do tax-supported public schools replicate or even worsen educational inequalities? Past and present critics of schools would answer “yes” (see here, here, here, and here).

But maybe they are wrong. Maybe public schools are either neutral or even ease inequalities over a student’s career in age-graded schools. Maybe public schools have been blamed unfairly for what is a societal problem and not a “school” problem. And even stranger in light of today’s full-bore indictment of schools, maybe they moderate societal effects and give the most disadvantaged children and youth a boost rather than a boot.

This argument over whether schools increase, have little impact, or even decrease educational inequalities has raged for decades among policymakers, pundits, and researchers (see here and here). Yet these arguments often skip over basic facts of U.S. schooling that few would dispute.These facts provide an essential context for those taking any position in this ongoing argument.

First, how much time does the average U.S. student spend in and out of school?

Because ways of calculating time in school vary, estimates range from 13 percent to the 20 percent in above pie chart (see here). Contending estimates still underscore that U.S. children and youth spend the vast majority of their time away from school at home and in the neighborhood. This fact, then, makes clear that most influence on what students do behaviorally and academically in school comes from home and community. Of course, 13-20 percent of a year’s time in school can make a difference in the lives of children and youth. But the fact remains: 80-87 percent of a year those kids are at home.

Another essential fact concerns the high correlation between parents’ education and income and their expectations for children’s achievement and test performance (also see here).

Out-of-school factors such as parental level of education and annual income influence students’ academic achievement. Multiple studies over the past century have established this steel-linked chain between parents’ socioeconomic status and their children’s school performance on standardized tests (see here, here, here, and here).

And when parents are asked which factors influence their children’s academic attainment, they clearly pointed to themselves.

And do not forget money. The huge variation in state and local funding of public schools establishes the base from which educator salaries (the bulk of a district’s expenditures), facilities, equipment, maintenance, and scores of other costs occur. Because most state and local money supporting schools come from property taxes, comparing Massachusetts and Mississippi, for example, spending per pupil gets at national variation. Recent teacher strikes in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma underscore not only the importance of money but the unequal allocation of resources across states.

Ditto for districts within states. Those districts fortunate to be located in high wealth areas   (e.g., Arlington, Virginia; Scarsdale, New York; River Forest, Illinois) get far more money to spend on schools than those in low wealth districts (Roanoke, Virginia, Rochester, New York, or Springfield, Illinois). Note  further that federal funds only account for a dime out of every dollar states and local districts spend on public schools.  So money matters particularly when it comes to providing equal spending. Another basic fact that often goes unnoticed.

These inescapable facts, however, have failed to clarify past or contemporary debates over the role of the school when it comes to reducing educational inequalities. Or get critics to modify their positions.

Having spent decades in urban and suburban schools as a history teacher, superintendent, and researcher I have placed myself along the continuum of this policy argument somewhere in the middle, tilting toward schools moderating educational inequalities but neither eliminating achievement gaps nor lifting families out of poverty. Some schools can reduce inequities by providing well-funded compensatory actions (e.g., preschool, differentiated curriculum, effective teachers, individualized instruction, longer school days, etc.).

Where I stand is anchored in my experiences within schools, research I have done, and intuition. While I believe that some schools can (and do) moderate educational inequities–they make a difference in children’s lives–for many years, I lacked  a conceptual framework, language, and data to make a coherent case for the position I have taken.

Data came first. In 1966, the federal government published a school survey study it had commissioned sociologist James Coleman to conduct.  Coleman’s conclusion was succinct:

One implication stands out above all: That schools bring little influence to bear on a child’s achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of independent effect means that the inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school.

This conclusion, underscoring the above essential facts of U.S. schooling, has been confirmed repeatedly in the past half-century (see here, here and here). None of these data, however, have stilled critics who have argued (and continue to do so) that public schools not only reproduce but worsen inequalities.

OK, home, neighborhood, and peers have outsized influence on what students achieve in school. But can schools with 13-20 percent of time that children and youth attend during the year moderate that huge effect? They can and do to a limited extent.

How do I know?

The familiar framework for looking at what schools do is to view academic achievement narrowly as measured by test scores. Student scores capture the effects of schooling within this narrow framework. And historically, using these test scores, a yawning achievement gap between white and minority students has remained nearly the same for decades. Moreover, as some policymakers have pointed out, “dropout factories” in urban school districts continue to exist. And low-income minority five year-olds entering school are already at a disadvantage compared to middle-class white kindergartners.

There are other frameworks, however. Schools account for how much is learned (e.g., acquiring cognitive skills, learning to get along in groups, etc.) that go beyond what standardized tests measure. Other measures, for example, capture what students learn (including those standardized tests) while in school as opposed to when they are out of school (e.g., summer breaks, going or not going to preschool). One measure of impact, then, is researchers examining how much students learn in school compared to when they are not in school, such as summers and at home three- and four year-olds (see here and here). And the evidence shows that students do pick up cognitive and other skills while in school thus having an impact and compensating for out-of-school factors.

Such a framework of comparing attending public school to not attending using in- and out-of-school data may influence the continuing debate over the role of schools in either worsening or improving educational inequalities but it will not end it. But it does give me the framework and data, a way of seeing how schools can influence students academically beyond what I have experienced in classrooms and schools, researched reforms, and intuition.

So what?

Part 2 takes up that question.

________________________________________

*I thank Professor Douglas Downey (Ohio State University) who gave a recent seminar at Stanford University for getting me to re-examine this contentious and on-going debate over the role of schools in influencing the large gaps in the distribution of wealth in the U.S. over the past century.

elaine April 26, 2018

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Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice: Public Schools and Educational Inequality: Some Thoughts* (Part 1) published first on https://buyessayscheapservice.tumblr.com/

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Scarsdale officials, residents hash out retail pot options | Top Stories

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Scarsdale officials, residents hash out retail pot options | Top Stories

Faced with a year-end deadline to decide whether to opt out of allowing marijuana dispensaries or on-site consumption businesses in the village, Scarsdale trustees agreed at a work session June 15 to draft initial legislation that would make smoking or vaping tobacco and marijuana products on village-owned property (parks, sidewalks, etc.) illegal.

The state’s marijuana regulation and taxation act (MRTA), signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in March, legalizes the possession, use, cultivation and sale of certain amounts of cannabis products for adults 21 years or older. The legalization ends a decades-long marijuana prohibition in New York, which proponents of the law said unfairly targeted Black and brown communities.

Though the law immediately legalized the possession and use of cannabis, the retail sale of marijuana is not expected to begin until late 2022 or early 2023, according to the New York Conference of Mayors.

Though the state has largely preempted local regulations on marijuana, the Scarsdale Board of Trustees held its first meeting this week to discuss whether to opt out of retail marijuana dispensaries and on-site consumption venues within the municipality’s boundaries as allowed by law.

Municipalities that do not opt out can still pass local laws and regulations governing the time, place and manner of licensed cannabis establishments, as long as the rules don’t make the operation of those businesses unreasonable.

If Scarsdale chooses not to opt out and puts no further restrictions on dispensaries or consumption sites, marijuana-focused businesses could theoretically open up in the village’s downtown.

Source: Village of Scarsdale

Though local governments must decide whether to opt out by Dec. 31, they would be allowed to opt back in at any time. Municipalities that choose not to opt out cannot change that decision after the December deadline.

Trustee Lena Crandall, who chairs the village’s law committee, which is tasked with analyzing MRTA, said that she was open to the idea of a high-end dispensary in Scarsdale, but was hesitant to allow places for on-site consumption.

“As a community we need to really think through what … the intentional and unintentional consequences of legalizing a dispensary [are],” Crandall told the Inquirer. “I think the idea of an on-site consumption lounge is moot because we simply don’t have a way to test reliably whether or not someone is under the influence when they’re driving. We are a driving community.”

Trustee Karen Brew, the vice chair of the Law Committee, said she was opposed to on-site consumption businesses, but remained open to a dispensary option.

“There are a lot of different factors that we need to consider, and my hope is that we do it with information and data and logic rather than emotion, and work through it all to get to the best decision,” she said.

While they do have Breathalyzer tests for alcohol, police departments don’t yet have a roadside test to detect whether someone is driving under the influence of marijuana.

Scarsdale Police Chief Andrew Matturro said officers would need to rely strictly on visual cues, which would make prosecutions more difficult.

“What we’d like to see in place hopefully by the time you have to make your decision is some type of roadside chemical test,” said Matturro to the board. He also said police chiefs and commissioners in the county were petitioning the state to provide funding for drug recognition experts. “That is a very expensive undertaking for law enforcement. Having one per department wouldn’t be sufficient,” he said.

According to the legislation, the commissioner of health is tasked with selecting higher education research institutions to conduct studies that would evaluate new methodologies and technologies for the detection of cannabis-impaired driving. When the studies are completed, the research institutions will need to issue a report to the state on or before Dec. 31, 2022.

The potential influx of tax revenue is another variable that municipalities will analyze in their decisions on whether to opt out or not.

According to the law, retail sales of cannabis will have a local excise tax rate of 4%. Counties will receive 25% of the local retail tax revenue and 75% will go to the municipality where the product was sold. If the village were to opt out, then it would also forgo any potential revenue from marijuana sales.

“Obviously, we all know we are fiscally challenged at this moment so … the heart of the matter is making sure we understand the economics of it,” said Trustee Jonathan Lewis.

Deputy Mayor Justin Arest, who opposes on-site consumption lounges, was also focused on the tax aspect of dispensaries, which he estimated could add a few hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue to the village.

“People can have it in their house, they can consume it, they can grow it, they can possess it and people can deliver it. Delivery services can come into Scarsdale. We cannot stop that,” said Arest, noting that dispensaries and on-site consumption lounges might open nearby in New Rochelle or Eastchester if those communities decide not to opt out.

“Our residents aren’t going to necessarily understand or appreciate that it’s still in their backyard and on top of that we’re not getting the revenue,” he said.

Other municipalities are also in the same boat as Scarsdale in determining what they plan to do about opting out. According to Scarsdale’s village attorney Dan Pozin, Mamaroneck, Briarcliff Manor, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Tuckahoe and the city of Rye have not focused substantially on the options for retail marijuana yet. The town of Eastchester, however, held a public hearing June 15 to consider a local law to opt out.

At the June 15 hearing in Scarsdale, some residents argued that the tax money generated from marijuana sales was not an alluring prospect and that they’d rather the village just raise village taxes rather than allow dispensaries and smoking bars to set up shop.

“I would really be shocked if revenue were the guiding factor in our decision here when we’re talking about the environment and we’re talking about health. If we can’t be more creative to come up with the revenue that we need, other than by supporting this concept in the community, I would be disappointed,” said resident John Schwarz. “I would almost rather … say just raise our taxes the amount, whatever it takes. Don’t put our kids at risk; don’t put us at risk; don’t put people in a … DUI situation.”

Carol Silverman, chair of the Advisory Council on Senior Citizens, shared a similar view, and said the council agreed unanimously that the village should opt out.

“If the matter is strictly money, just raise the taxes or whatever we have to do to account for that,” said Silverman. “We don’t think that we should be encouraging it or enabling [retail marijuana] in our town.”

Bob Harrison, a 40-year resident of Scarsdale and chairman of Scarsdale Taxpayer Alert, said the watchdog group wasn’t looking to raise revenue for the village from marijuana sales and was concerned about giving teenagers an extra opportunity to pick up the drug.

“There are better ways to approach the problem of drug use,” he said.

Though the village hasn’t come to a consensus on the question of retail marijuana, trustees were supportive of having village attorney Pozin draft a resolution to further limit smoking on village-owned property. According to Village Manager Steve Pappalardo, the village currently has an administrative policy in place that prohibits smoking in village facilities and entrances, at the swimming pool complex and on any field or playground, though it isn’t prescribed in the village code.

“The village does have some authority over its property, so it’s not just parks and parking lots and playgrounds, but also the streets and the sidewalks. To the extent the sidewalks are owned by the municipalities, they can regulate their use,” said Pozin. “But recognize that that’s going to have to include banning cigarette smoke … So, it can’t just be cannabis.”

Marijuana and tobacco products are treated the same by law, which means marijuana can’t be consumed in places of employment, bars, restaurants, enclosed swimming pools, public transportation or ticketing areas, child care service facilities or day cares, group homes for children, public institutions or residential treatment facilities for children, all public and private universities, hospitals, indoor arenas, zoos and bingo facilities.

People are also not allowed to smoke marijuana on school grounds or within 100 feet of an entrance or exit of an elementary school or public library.

Retail marijuana dispensaries and on-site consumption sites also can’t be located within 500 feet of school grounds or within 200 feet of a house of worship.

According to a map presented by Village Planner Greg Cutler, if the village doesn’t opt out or add further restrictions on dispensaries or on-site consumption locations, marijuana-focused businesses, according to state law, could theoretically open on Scarsdale Avenue, Garth Road, Harwood Court, East Parkway and Spencer and Christie Place.

Susan Douglass, vice president of the Scarsdale Forum, said the group was studying the issue and plans to release a report on the opt-out issue. Personally, she said she was against on-site consumption lounges, but open to an upscale dispensary. She also asked whether landlords had a say in allowing a marijuana dispensary or on-site consumption business in their privately owned building.

Pozin said it wasn’t specified in the law, but he didn’t see the state requiring landlords to include marijuana-focused businesses if they didn’t want that sort of business in their buildings.

DJ Petta of Scarsdale Improvement Co., which owns many of the buildings in the village’s downtown, told the Inquirer the company hadn’t discussed the law yet and didn’t have a strong opinion either way about allowing dispensaries or consumption lounges.

“I think it would be more so how other merchants feel about it and how the community feels about it that would lead to our decision,” said Petta.

Marcy Berman-Goldstein, co-president of the Scarsdale Business Alliance, told the Inquirer the group didn’t have a statement on whether the village should allow cannabis dispensaries or lounges, or whether there should be a smoking ban on village-owned property.

Locally, Scarsdale’s Drug and Alcohol Task Force has voiced opposition to recreational legalization and its members have shared concerns about what the impact will be on the village’s youth, who are often targeted by cigarette, alcohol and vaping industries to use their products despite age limits imposed by law.

Wendy Gendel, chair of the task force, said the group would continue to educate students and families about the dangers of marijuana with youth.

Trustee Randy Whitestone, who serves as liaison to Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Service which oversees the Drug and Alcohol Task Force, said although there was an increasing acceptance of marijuana and a “social evolution,” allowing it in the community was still an “affirmative decision.”

“Just because other villages do it and get revenue from it … doesn’t mean we have to make that same decision,” he said.

Though many community members shared a concern about the village’s youth being enticed by marijuana if the village were to allow local retailers, according to 2017 PRIDE survey data, marijuana use is already prevalent among students in the high school. In 2014, 15.4% of high school students said they had used marijuana in the past 30 days. In 2017, the numbers increased to 20.3%. The survey respondents also reported that they perceived marijuana as less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes.

Brew said she had seen marijuana use “skyrocketing” in the high school, based on the survey results, and she said people need to consider the 21-year-old age limit for dispensaries, which could limit marijuana’s black market.

Brew also said messaging and educating students about marijuana use is essential.

“It’s here. It’s in the high school. Our kids are consuming it whether we want them to or not,” said Brew. “I think there are a lot of things to consider.”

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Gasoline becomes more affordable, just when Americans don't need it

NEW YORK (Reuters) – At two gasoline stations in Scarsdale, a wealthy suburb of New York City not far from one of the nation’s worst outbreaks of coronavirus, attendants whiled away the minutes on a rainy Friday morning at what would normally be their busiest time of day.

“We’ve had one or two customers – that’s it,” said Julio Barrios as he sat under an umbrella at the full-service Shell station in downtown Scarsdale. “For more than a week, business has been slow.”

The coronavirus has infected at least 156,000 people worldwide and killed more than 5,800, rocking the global economy.

As cases steadily grow across the United States, Americans are cancelling road trips, running fewer errands and finding they do not have to drop their children off at school following widespread closings.

The irony is that drivers are parking their cars at a time when gasoline is more affordable, which usually spurs more driving. The average price for a gallon of gasoline is $2.26 as of Saturday, lowest since 2017, according to the American Automobile Association.

The United States consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products daily, the most worldwide, and motor gasoline accounts for nearly half of that, at about 9 million barrels a day. But the coronavirus outbreak’s effect on driving activity is expected to be drastic.

“We would estimate commuting and leisure driving will be down up to 50%, with most impact in the northern states where the virus spreads faster now,” said Per Magnus Nysveen, senior partner at Oslo, Norway-based energy research firm Rystad Energy.

A cab driver wears plastic gloves after fueling his car in a gas station while gasoline price has been declined due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York, U.S., March 14, 2020. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

That could sap fuel demand by roughly 2 million to 2.5 million barrels per day, he said, and for 2020, that would cut demand by roughly 300,000 to 400,000 bpd. Worldwide, overall oil demand is set to fall in 2020 for the first time since 2009, the International Energy Agency said last week.

The reasons for the sharp fall in prices are not just due to the coronavirus. A week ago, an oil price war erupted between Saudi Arabia and Russia after those nations were unable to come to a deal to cut supplies in response to the anticipated drop in demand due to the virus.

Instead of curbing supply, Saudi Arabia and other nations are flooding global markets with barrels of crude oil. U.S. crude oil prices CLc1, which account for about half of the price of retail gasoline, dropped to about $31 per barrel this week, lowest since 2016.

Some U.S. states have seen average gasoline prices fall by more than 10 cents in the last week. Savings on low gasoline prices are usually referred to by lawmakers as “like a tax cut,” but for the moment, Americans are seeing they can pocket savings just by not driving at all.

“I will have zero driving requirements for two weeks (minimum) now that everything is shutting down,” said Cathy Martin, of Potomac, Maryland. “For me, my average weekly work and kid activity driving is 150 miles.”

That shift has not yet shown up in official U.S. Energy Department figures, where motor gasoline demand is up 1.7% for the past four weeks when compared with the year-ago period.

Industry analysts said consumers can expect cheaper gasoline prices for the foreseeable future, even with the approach of the summer driving season, when prices tend to climb along with demand. U.S. gasoline futures RBc1 fell to 85.36 cents a gallon on Friday, lowest seasonally since at least 2005, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Slideshow (3 Images)

The average American’s motor gasoline expenditures were $1,072 in 2017, the latest data available, according to the U.S. Energy Department. That total varies by state, from as little as $708 in New York to a high of $1,441 in Wyoming.

But some Americans spend much more than that due to lengthy commutes, like Jamie Niederkohr of Toledo, Ohio, who normally drives up to 200 miles a day related to work as a data collector. Her husband has a 71-mile per day commute.

“I figure we could save over $200 a week (on gasoline),” she said.

Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Jessica Resnick-Ault; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Andrea Stewart-Cousins on Democratic Unity and the ‘Value’ of Primaries

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=4059

Andrea Stewart-Cousins on Democratic Unity and the ‘Value’ of Primaries

Andrea Stewart-Cousins at the state party convention (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)

While policies to prevent and punish sexual harassment were being decided in Albany during state budget negotiations earlier this year, four men led the closed-door talks: Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, and the leader of the now-defunct Independent Democratic Conference Jeff Klein. Even as female aides had some level of participation, there was a great deal of scrutiny of the absence of Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Democratic minority in state Senate, especially given that Cuomo’s office had indicated she would be included.

“You would’ve thought you would’ve been able to get in a room and at least let her say something,” Stewart-Cousins said of her own situation during a recent episode of the Max & Murphy podcast from Gotham Gazette and City Limits. “Never happened.”

Stewart-Cousins called it a feature of “an institution that has institutionalized a lot of stuff,” and said that “breaking those norms are really, really difficult things to do.”

But breaking established ways of doing things is something of a pattern for Stewart-Cousins, who is both the first woman and the first African-American woman to be elected as the state Senate minority leader. Now, after post-budget reconciliation between the mainline Democrats she leads and Klein’s IDC, Stewart-Cousins is also in position to become the first woman and woman of color to be the majority leader of the Senate, depending on the results of the fall elections. They are elections she is becoming increasingly involved with, she indicated on the podcast, connecting the upcoming attempts to flip seats from Republican to Democrat as part of a “blue wave” sweeping the nation.

Stewart-Cousins’ frame for viewing the elections and potential Democratic majority in the Senate, and thus the Legislature given the party’s stranglehold on the Assembly, is the recent Senate reunification, pushing her, it seems, to be more forgiving, take the long-view, and look ahead, not back.

Exclusion from the anti-sexual harassment talks – and the state budget discussions in general – may be a thorny issue, but not one that poses a major point of contention between Stewart-Cousins and her colleagues.

“It goes back to the basic tenet: a house divided against itself can’t stand,” Stewart-Cousins said in response to a question of her possible frustrations with elements of the unity deal that was struck among her, Klein and Cuomo in April, and whether she trusts Klein. “How are we gonna do this?…I’m not gonna be sitting there having people somehow undermine the efforts that we have to be a team. That’s always been the case.”

There are still challenges to the notion of a unified Democratic front: each of the eight former members of the IDC is facing a primary challenge, and while the Democratic establishment has agreed to mutual support, a number of grassroots groups and a handful of elected officials are backing the challengers.

On the podcast, Stewart-Cousins emphasized that she has endorsed all incumbent Democratic senators, including those who were formerly part of the IDC, “so that people are very, very clear where I stand,” she said in response to a question of whether or not she would tell fellow party members to drop their support for the challengers. “I think that in and of itself sends a message.”

While she did not call primaries a bad thing, Stewart-Cousins further emphasized the importance of moving past former divisions in order for the party to function. “I think that’s over,” she said of the Senate Democratic division, “and it’s up to me…to give the kind of support and respect that I should be giving as the leader and as a colleague, and I believe that we set that tone,” she said. “There’s nobody coming in feeling less than, unworthy. There’s no recriminations.”

In response to a question of whether Cuomo – who has long been criticized for encouraging or at least tolerating the IDC’s existence – could have brokered such a unity deal earlier on, and thus possibly prevented the handicapped progress on key issues for the Democratic Party, Stewart-Cousins said, “Like I always say, he did make it happen….I don’t think he was terribly concerned about the situation because as far as we he was concerned, maybe it was manageable. I think it’s gotten to the point where it was looking unmanageable because of all the different factors, so he asserted himself.”

If the Democrats are able to obtain majority control of the state Senate in November, a policy agenda including action on immigration, climate change, voting and elections, campaign financing, reproductive rights, and more may move. Stewart-Cousins referenced pieces like the Child Victims Act and the Dream Act stagnating in the currently Republican-controlled state Senate. Additionally, Republican senators recently blocked Democrats’ attempts to see voting on the Reproductive Health Act and the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Care Act – two pieces of legislation that would, respectively, enshrine in New York law the same reproductive rights under the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling and mandate accessibility to birth control medication – when Democrats attempted to push them through late last month.

“There’s so many things that we could do in addition to, obviously, the things that we’re bringing up today,” Stewart-Cousins said.

For their part, Senate Republicans often seek to ‘warn’ New Yorkers of what full Democratic control of state government could bring. “The New York City politicians who think it will be easy to flip the State Senate and impose their radical agenda on the people of New York should take heed,” said Senate spokesperson Scott Reif, in an April statement. “Our Majority represents the checks and balances, and the real accountability that hardworking taxpayers need and deserve.  Without us it’s one party rule, higher taxes, runaway spending and New Yorkers will be less safe.”

Democrats first need to contend with reconciling the different wings within their own party, a division apparent in the challengers to former IDC members and to Cuomo. Stewart-Cousins has unique perspective, representing Senate District 35, an area that includes towns like Yonkers, White Plains, and Scarsdale, with a wide variety of Democrats and plenty of Republicans and party unaffiliated voters.

Asked which wing of the party she identifies with, Stewart-Cousins deemphasized the ostensible differences in her party. “I’ve been able to, I think, gain a perspective that a lot of people don’t have as it relates to governing,” she said, referring to her unique position as the first Democratic leader representing a district outside New York City in a hundred years. “Everybody pretty much wants the same thing. It’s not different. It’s how you deliver these things or how you’re able to characterize these things or how you react is really where the differences lie.”

On the question of primaries, like that Governor Cuomo is facing, Stewart-Cousins took a different approach from some others, like Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. “I certainly have no problem with the fact that there’s a primary going on,” she said, responding to a question of whether or not the gubernatorial candidacy of challenger Cynthia Nixon is emblematic of the Democratic Party being a ‘house divided.’ “The conversations about the vision for New York and who should lead it are valuable,” she added.

For now, at least, Stewart-Cousins maintains a face of smiling unity toward Klein, who serves as her deputy, and the rest of the Democratic Party.

Asked if there’s a chance that party members pull another IDC-esque ploy in the coming years, Stewart-Cousins said, “The environment has changed and that’s why I think this unity works, because we’ve been to the other side. We know what that looks like, and I don’t know if anybody needs or wants to go back there again.”

[Listen: Max & Murphy Podcast: Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins]

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