New York State's Ineptitude

We received an letter from the state indicating that we needed to register for a discount on taxes based on having incomes less than $500K (STAR exemption). It said that elderly need no do anything. Then it said we had to do something. So we called (518)457-2036, and the site gave out the wrong URL. Then we found the right URL, and this site was only marginally adept at gathering its data. And when we tried to enter my brother in law's data, it refused, claiming we had an open window doing the same thing, when in fact we didn't. What a pain. Almost as bad as the DMV

New York Times letter (rejected)!

Sirs:
Sen. Portman's recent conversion (NYTimes, 3/15/2013) brings to mind a fundamental flaw in our government which is rarely discussed.Who did he represent when advocating the Defense of Marriage Act, and who does he represent now? In both cases it appears as if he represented only himself. Our representative government has become a sham. Elected officials think they've been anointed. Where the Supreme Court members can exercise their bigotries as they see fit, elected officials are supposed to, in some sense, represent their electorate; voting in opposition to that electorate is assumed to take place only in special circumstances usually involving conscience. Representative democracy is being destroyed and voting now becomes a task of choosing the least harmful among the gaggle of supplicants grasping for power.