New York Senate Fiddles...

New York City residents in recent years have made a burgeoning business out of offering their apartments for rent on a short-term basis to out-of-towners for the latter to use for a mini-vacation.

However, the New York State Senate is now considering a bill that would outright ban people living in New York City from using Craigslist and similar sites from doing just that.

"This week, writes Budget Travel, "New York state senators vote on a bill that would make it illegal for any homeowner or renter to sublet for less than a month. The new law would be a blanket ban on short-term rentals no matter how ethical the renter is. (It's always been illegal to violate co-op leases and condominium bylaws.)"

Maybe the Senators are looking for a reason to not focus on the state's gigantic, exploding $9 billion plus budget deficit.

The state is quickly sinking into a fiscal hellhole, and instead of coming up with growth-oriented policies (for example - cut the state sales tax, slash the individual tax rate, waive certain rules and regulations for newly-formed businesses, etc.) the best that state lawmakers can do is to make it even more unlikely that a budget-conscious traveler will actually want to visit New York City.

Given the complete reluctance on the part of New York state lawmakers to make difficult choices on how much the government attempts to raise in the form of taxes and how much of that amount it should spend, its challenging fiscal times will continue and only get worse from here.