The Fair Share Tax Reform Act is picking up steam. Today, Senators Savino and Espada signed on as co-sponsors bringing the total to 22 senators supporting the bill. How else can you tell that FSTR is gaining momentum? Because the pushback is beginning in earnest.
Finally, someone is fighting for the rich guys.
A group of powerful business organizations is preparing to fight a proposed "millionaire's tax" they say will drive affluent New Yorkers out of state.
Taxpayers for an Affordable NY includes the Business Council of New York, the Real Estate Board of New York, and the Rent Stabilization Association - a trio of groups that came together once before, in the early 1990s, to fight property tax hikes.
 Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, an astroturf org, has even mailed out 150,000 of the mailers you see at the right. The mailers and the website are so full of BS and distortions as to be almost comical. Of course, we're talking about real people and a fiscal crisis that is all too real. There's nothing, not a damn thing, funny about it.
The Working Families Party believes that you are not paying your fair share and they are pressuring your State Senator to increase your income taxes. Amazingly, despite what we have learned these past months, they want New York to continue to spend more then it has and they want you to pay for it. They call it a "millionaire tax" even though the taxes of every family with an income of more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars could be raised by 20 to 50 percent.
Governor David Paterson has said "My belief is (that raising income taxes) is an almost automatic formula for losing population in the state and losing job creation."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg called this plan a "crazy idea". He said "You can't tax people who can move... the city would end up losing its tax base."
Families that earn more than $200,000 comprise only 4% of taxpayers but they pay 54% of the taxes. It seems to us that you already pay your "Fair Share".
If you read this site regularly, you are probably fairly familiar with what the Fair Share tax Reform Act does and what it does not. Take a look at the copy above and count the falsehoods.
So that's a good measure of the momentum building behind the proposal. The fat cats are mobilizing and using all the usual tools to spread fear and disinformation.
That's a good indication that we're winning. |
