The State Senate has posted a full breakdown -- by budget area -- of the agreed to budget online. This a first, as far as I can tell. I suspect that Andrew Hoppin's Senate CIO team played a part in making this happen, though it's certain that it wouldn't be there without direction from the Senate Majority Leader. Definitely a step in the right direction.
Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders on Monday defended their secretive negotiations and the eye-popping $131.8 billion budget they produced over the weekend, even as they warned that further deterioration in the economy could force them to return to the bargaining table in the coming months.
In a subdued appearance in the Capitol, Mr. Paterson, joined by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith, described the deal as a necessary consensus between cutting spending and finding new revenue in the face of a large, and continually growing, budget gap.
"I think that there's a balance now between taxes on higher incomes and taxes on everybody, so that there's a shared sacrifice," Mr. Paterson said. He also said that he might have to revisit cuts to services and so-called nuisance taxes - like levies on sugared sodas and downloaded songs - that he agreed to abandon in the new deal.
"I would like to tell you that this budget brings about the end of our fiscal crisis, but I can't do that; that would be intellectually dishonest," Mr. Paterson said. But the deal was an important step, he added. "We can see the light at the end of the tunnel."
But as outside analysts began poring over hundreds of pages of the budget, they said they saw little evidence of stern spending discipline, even in the face of a major recession. In closing a budget deficit that in the end surpassed $17 billion, lawmakers relied on billions of dollars in new taxes and fees, some of which may not even raise as much revenue as hoped if the economy continues to worsen. And like every Albany budget, whether in good years or bad, this one includes $170 million worth of what critics call pork-barrel spending for lawmakers' pet projects.
"The disappointment from the business community is that the Legislature doesn't seem to understand how serious this crisis is, and that it threatens our future," said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business trade group. "The response - of holding the state budget basically harmless - just doesn't fly with people who are cutting salaries, laying people off and aren't sure where their business is going."
Mr. Paterson and his staff appear to have won significant concessions from the health care sector by overhauling outdated Medicaid reimbursements, while shifting money away from expensive in-patient care to preventative care and clinics. Over time, officials said, that shift would save both operating costs and capital money.
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"What does the future hold? One way of looking at that is, New York - and every other state - are going to be in desperate straits if the federal stimulus money runs out in two years," said Robert B. Ward, deputy director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, an Albany research organization. "It won't be long until the drumbeat starts to make this a longer-lasting enhancement of federal aid."
Mr. Silver, the powerful and cagey Assembly speaker, achieved what he wanted in the budget that emerged from the shadows of the statehouse this weekend, cementing his newfound role as the capital's center of gravity.
He won the policy fight, forcing Gov. David A. Paterson to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, an idea that the governor decried as potentially disastrous three weeks ago. The $131.8 billion budget, which could hardly be called austere, is largely a reflection of the liberal tilt of Mr. Silver, and the Assembly's predilection for big spending on social programs, no matter the economic climate.
Mr. Silver also dictated the process, turning back the clock to the most secretive budget negotiations the capital has seen in years, casting aside the open government that Mr. Paterson and other Democrats once said would follow the party's sweeping victories in recent state elections. He argued that technicalities in recently passed budget reform legislation allowed the Legislature to circumvent requirements for open meetings among those negotiating the spending plan.
And the speaker preserved the Legislature's cherished spending on pet projects, pushing successfully for $170 million for members to dole out in district spending, leaving that pool of money essentially untouched, despite the fiscal crisis.
He argued that "nonprofit organizations throughout the state have been devastated by the economic downturn," but lawmakers appropriated money for gun clubs, churches, a yoga foundation and the Wantagh American Legion Pipe Band, among thousands of other projects.
Critics say Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side who has been speaker for the last 15 years, is the symbol of all that is broken in state government, a man who long ago forsook principle for power. They also say that he lacks the fiscal discipline to prudently manage the state's escalating future deficits.
Allies say he is the only senior Democrat in state government fielding a competent staff with the expertise to lead the state, and that he will usher in a more activist left-leaning agenda on important policy issues, like the recent agreement among state leaders to eliminate many of the remaining stringent Rockefeller era penalties for drug offenses.
New York's ruling Democratic triumvirate took a giant generational leap backward yesterday to the destructive days of John Lindsay, Abe Beame and Nelson Rockefeller.
The budget created by Gov. Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is a monstrously bloated, tax-and-spend plan that, in one fell swoop, reverses a three-decade-long effort to strengthen business and prevent taxpayers from fleeing the state.
The wrecking ball of a new state budget, approved in Kremlin-like secrecy by the troika, also ranks as one of the biggest betrayals in process and substance by a governor in New York history.
The reform effort being reversed by Paterson & Co. began in 1975, when then-newly elected Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey, ending 16 years of Republican rule, famously declared that the "Days of Wine and Roses" were over.
Gov. David A. Paterson emerged from behind closed doors Monday to defend the state's newly proposed $131.8 billion budget, but business groups railed against its massive tax hike package as education and health care special interests complained it does not spend enough.
Critics of the 2009 budget rushed to the Capitol and flooded lawmakers' telephones to try to unravel support, especially those from upstate.
But Paterson, who in a session with reporters appeared to undermine some elements of the plan he had just negotiated, said there were few options for a government that saw its projected deficit leap by billions in just a couple weeks, to $17.7 billion.
"None of this makes sense," he said of a plan that imposes record tax increases and cuts many popular programs. But he said the choices were difficult and a "shared sacrifice" by all New Yorkers. "This is in response to a crisis," he said.
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But several Senate Democrats emerging from a caucus meeting said their 32-member coalition is holding steady and will back the budget despite GOP criticisms that it especially targets upstate for cuts and tax increases. With the GOP vowing to vote no, it would take only one Democrat to vote no, resulting in an unbreakable tie because the state has no lieutenant governor.
"We don't like the things that are in there," said Sen. William Stachowski, a Lake View Democrat. He said he would support the budget today. "We've never had to deal with a $17 billion budget hole," he said.
Governor David Paterson and the leaders of the Legislature have struck a deal to create two new tax brackets for those earning above $300,000 and $500,000. The new tax structure would raise an estimated $4 billion annually.
This is largely due to the work of State Senator Eric Schneiderman, the Working Families Party, and others who responded to the state's $15 billion budget deficit by asking the wealthy to pay their fair share and demanding an end to the injustice of people earning $20,000 per year paying the same tax rate as Bernie Madoff, Donald Trump and the hedge funders -- 6.85 percent. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was instrumental in making progressive tax reform part of the final budget negotiations.
Initially, Gov. Paterson proposed the same tired conservative economic policy that has dominated the past thirty years--$9 billion of harsh cuts in education, healthcare and social services, and $5 billion in new taxes that would hit the struggling poor and middle-class the hardest. No sacrifices for the wealthy. Although there are still cuts that will cause a lot of pain for working people and the poor, this budget will be vastly improved.
Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, told the Times: "It's a profound breakthrough for tax fairness." In the perennial balancing act between a transformative politics aimed at a more humane and sustainable society, and the necessary compromises to begin addressing people's immediate needs, progressives have scored an important and timely victory.
Gov. David A. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature have reached a deal to temporarily raise taxes on New York's highest earners in order to close the state's yawning budget deficit, lawmakers and officials involved in the talks said on Saturday.
The new plan, which would expire after three years, would represent the largest state income tax increase in recent history, significantly larger than the surcharges imposed from 2003 to 2005, when the state last faced a major recession.
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Currently, New York's highest tax rate, 6.85 percent, kicks in for couples and joint filers making more than $40,000.
"It's a profound breakthrough for tax fairness," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party. "The era of phony prosperity has ended, and a new era of real shared sacrifice must begin."
Concluding the most secretive budget negotiations in recent memory, Gov. David A. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature outlined a $131.8 billion agreement on Sunday that would close the state's gaping deficit with billions of dollars in new taxes, financing from the federal stimulus and a substantial slowdown in the growth of health care spending.
The final days of negotiations between Mr. Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith have been conducted under a veil of secrecy so profound that even well-seasoned Albany cynics were taken aback.
And despite the enormous fiscal pressure the state faces, the budget contains $170 million in financing for pet projects - an amount unchanged from last year - suggesting that Albany's appetite for with what critics call pork-barrel spending appeared to be undiminished. Listed in the budget were grants to gun clubs, an upstate museum dedicated to bricks and brick-making, the Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta and an organization known as the Urban Yoga Foundation.
A lot of people would probably love to have the headaches of someone who earns more than $500,000 a year. But those headaches grew over the weekend with the announcement in Albany of new tax brackets for the highest earners. While there were no tears spilling into Champagne flutes over brunch on Sunday, there were voices of frustration among those facing higher payments to the State of New York
Jorge Colmenares, founder and owner of Miracol Energy, an investment firm in renewable energy, said that he earned more than $500,000 and that he was happy to do his part. But he wondered about the negative effects of higher taxes on consumers.
"If you continue to take away from people in the form of taxes, it is restricting them more in spending," he said while shopping on Madison Avenue. "On the one hand, I would agree: With the wealth that you can create, you should give back. But is the government using that money correctly? There's a lot of skepticism these days as to whether that's actually going to be the case."
Carmine A. Nicoletti, 51, of Great Neck, who owns a printing company in Queens, declined to state his income, but said that his household earned enough to fall into one of Gov. David A. Paterson's proposed tax brackets.
"I'm O.K. with it," he said of paying more taxes, while at Via Quadronno restaurant on the Upper East Side. "I'd rather pay my share if the economy is going to benefit. I mean, I don't like to pay taxes, but I don't mind if it helps my country. It shouldn't affect my family."
Julian N. Carter, 42, of the Upper East Side, said that he fell into the $500,000-and-higher tax bracket as a banker at Société Générale and that he supported the new tax.
"I'm absolutely in favor of it," he said outside the restaurant Frederick's Madison on Madison Avenue. "Listen, the reality is that someone has to pay the bill, and it has to come from taxes. You can't be selfish. My view is you have to redistribute."
Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders unveiled a record $131.8 billion tax-and-spend budget deal Sunday night.
Despite Paterson's repeated warnings about the state's fiscal crisis, total spending actually increases by $10.5 billion, or 8.7%, according to state leaders. The bulk of that, they say, is $7.2 billion in federal stimulus money that is required to be spent in the coming fiscal year.
The remainder includes $2 billion in spending cuts rejected by lawmakers as well as $1.3 billion in capital and debt service spending. Even without factoring in the stimulus money, state taxpayer-supported funding should grow by at least $800 million, Paterson's office said.
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Among those are vehicle registration fees, a cigar tax, a beer and wine tax, a utility assessment, an auto insurance surcharge, driver's license fees, a rental car tax and a registration fee for tobacco sellers. Bottled water drinkers will pay a nickel more because the drink has been added to the 5-cent bottle deposit law.
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After spending most of yesterday not commenting even on the size of the new spending package, Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) finally released the details Sunday evening.
To close a record two-year deficit of $17.7 billion, they say, the budget contains a combination of $5.2 billion in spending cuts, $5.2billion in new taxes, $1.1 billion in nonrecurring revenue and the use of $6.2billion in federal stimulus money.
They also say it increases state taxpayer-supported spending by just 1% for the fiscal year beginning Wednesday and reduces New York's long-term deficits 80%.
"We have produced a budget that provides a solid foundation to move forward and address challenges ahead," Paterson said. "We have accomplished this with a budget that holds government accountable to the people of New York, and protects those who cannot protect themselves."
Democratic leaders yesterday released details of a state budget deal that would push spending to a staggering $132 billion next year -- an increase of 10 percent -- while they ask residents to fork over a record-breaking $7.8 billion in taxes and fees.
The huge spending plan is $10.7 billion higher than the bare-bones plan Gov. Paterson released less than four months ago in a call for fiscal austerity.
It comes in the wake of a $4 billion soak-the-rich income-tax hike, the elimination of a $1.5 billion property-tax rebate plan, and $2.3 billion in new and extended business taxes and nuisance fees.
Among other things, the budget would add nickel deposits to bottled water, ratchet up taxes on beer and cigars, and raise income taxes at least 14.5 percent on families making more than $300,000 a year.
But Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) refused to give up even a dime of the notorious $170 million slush fund lawmakers use to dole out grants to favored nonprofits and community groups.
More than $6 billion in aid from Washington forestalled much of Paterson's proposed reductions to schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other health care institutions. But $6.5 billion in cuts and $4 billion from increasing taxes on the rich were required to close a two-year deficit of $17.7 billion.
The budget "closes the largest deficit in state history, stabilizes our finances and institutes critical reforms that will help eliminate waste and inefficiency in our government," Paterson said in a statement.
The plan boosts myriad taxes and fees on everything from driver's licenses to marine fishing licenses.
Still, elimination of the popular STAR rebate checks is sure to anger hard-pressed homeowners. The checks sent $1.4 billion back to taxpayers statewide - $370 million to Nassau and Suffolk residents - helping offset ever higher school levies.
The basic STAR and enhanced STAR exemptions - which reduce tax bills - are unaffected.
School taxes may rise in some districts despite the restoration of $1.1 billion in cuts proposed by Paterson. Superintendents said they were disappointed that education aid would grow by just $405 million, with the Island receiving 5 percent instead of its traditional 13 percent share.
The state's new, inflation-busting budget will require New Yorkers to pay more to go fishing and hunting, drive a car or motorcycle, have life insurance, operate the lights and heat in their homes, buy cigarettes, own a cell phone and drink beer, wine and bottled water.
Single taxpayers making more than $200,000 a year will see a jump in taxes, as will bus companies, nuclear plants, food processing companies, racehorse owners, farmers, pesticide applicators, grocery stores and anyone wanting to open a hospice.
In all, the total number of new taxes, fees and various assessments and surcharges will top $7 billion in the new budget that state lawmakers will vote on beginning Tuesday. The governor's office put the number at $5.3 billion, but that misses a number of levies.
The higher taxes will help pay for a budget that will soar to $131.8 billion-$10.7 billion more than what Gov. David A. Paterson proposed just three months ago. Federal bailout money accounts for two-thirds of that sharp increase, with the rest coming from new spending and debt.
The higher tax figures do not include the financial hit from some tax breaks being rescinded. Gone, for instance, are the annual STAR property tax rebate checks that arrive each fall right before Election Day. That will cost taxpayers $1.5 billion this year.
New York Magazine - Tax the Rich! How did the poor win the New York tax war? Welcome to the era of the moneyed underclass.
"It's not an easy time to defend the rich," says Kathryn Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City. "In the current environment, with the anti-Wall Street sentiment, it's just politically unattractive."
Dan Cantor, who runs the labor-affiliated Working Families Party, gave his own diagnosis. "We just work much harder than the right-wingers. They think they can just do it by writing checks to the politicians. We don't have money. We have our passion."
That's not quite true. In Albany, the wealthiest and most well-connected groups often are representing the little guy. The teachers unions burn through $4 million a year on donations to state lawmakers and lobbying expenses, rivaling the outlays of the state's hospital associations, which also pressed for a tax hike.
Since December, the supporters of the rich tax-an alliance of organized labor and community-activist groups-waged a campaign that further weakened Governor Paterson. They spent millions on ads attacking him and staged feisty protests. (At one near City Hall last month, 1199 SEIU president George Gresham mocked his adversaries: "Where are the wealthy going to go? Iowa?")
Cantor says his party also banged on 72,000 doors, collecting over 12,000 "handwritten" notes calling on Albany to raise taxes.
At the last minute, real-estate and business trade groups pulled a long-dormant nonprofit group, Taxpayers for an Affordable NY, out of the mothballs. But it hasn't done much good. The deeper problem, says Real Estate Board head Steven Spinola, is that "the business community is not as monolithic as the unions."
It appears that deal has been reached to ask a bit more of those New Yorkers who can most afford it instead of balancing the state's budget on the backs of the poor and middle class. Liz has the scoop.
There is a tentative three-way deal on hiking the personal income tax on wealthy New Yorkers, multiple Democratic sources confirm.
The agreement - assuming it holds - sets up the following three tiers:
- $300,000 to $500,000: 7.97 percent.
- $500,000 to $1 million: 8.47 percent.
- $1 million and above: 8.97 percent.
This increase will sunset in five years.
The current top rate is 6.85 percent for those who make $40,000 and above.
I'd add the Working Families Party to the winners column along with the Assembly Democrats and I agree with Liz that the losers column includes The Governor, The Mayor and the Senate Majority Leader.
Good news from Albany. Hopefully this "tentative" deal will hold.
Unshackle Upstate's Brian Sampson is making the news circuit these last few weeks with the message that Fair Share Tax Reform would cause small businesses to fire workers (the Fair Share Tax Reform is making progress in Albany with bills that would create new NYS marginal tax brackets starting at $250,000). He says that 75% of small business owners pay taxes through personal income tax.
Ok, sounds like a reasonable concern, right?
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community According to James Parrott, of the Fiscal Policy Institute, "only 1.4% of tax units with small business income were in the top two federal tax brackets, i.e., over $250K." The VAST majority of small business owners don't make that kind of money and therefore would never be subject to the Fair Share tax.
And let's think about Unshackle Upstate's logic for a minute. Imagine you are one of the rare group of small business owners netting over $250,000. The new Fair Share Tax Reform tax bracket costs you about $70 a week extra. Are you going to fire a worker to recoup that seventy bucks?
The good news is that Sampson's disingenuous media forays are the last gasps of a sinking trickle down theory. Wanna see a New Yorker laugh in your face? Tell them that tax breaks for the rich create jobs.
Do you pay the same tax rate as millionaires like Donald Trump and Bernie Madoff?
The answer may surprise you. The WFP hit the streets to see if New Yorkers knew just how little you have to make to be in the state's highest tax bracket.
Even while President Obama works to make America's taxes fairer, New York's tax code is anything but. Over the last 30 years, the rich have seen their state taxes cut in half. Today, janitors and cab drivers pay the same state tax rate as Wall Street bankers.
It's not just unfair--with the state facing a $14 billion budget gap and devastating cuts to hospitals and nursing homes, it's madness.
The Senate Dems are preparing to conference the fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009, a bill also known as the "Millionaire's Tax". It was introduced by Senator Schneiderman and had 18 total sponsors signed on in support.
Until now. It seems the bill has picked up two more sponsors ahead of tonight's meeting.
As the Senate Democrats prepare to conference the question of tax reform at 6 p.m. this evening, the so-called Fair Share bill being pushed by the WFP and its labor allies is gaining steam in both houses of the Legislature.
In the Senate, two more Democrats - Tom Duane and Martin Dilan - have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, bringing the total number of supporters to 20, according to the WFP's Bill Lipton.
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In the Assembly, a same-as bill is being carried by Assemblyman Darryl Towns, chairman of the 48-member Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus.
Towns introduced the bill earlier this week and has garnered the support of 30 of his colleagues.
"It's critically important that we solve the budget crisis through real shared sacrifice," Towns said in a statement relayed to me by a labor supporter of the bill. "Fair Share Tax Reform will make New York's tax code more equitable and will also raise revenue necessary to protect essential services."
Does Governor David Paterson pay attention to polls? I'm not certain, but if he doesn't, he better start.
Siena College has released their latest poll that finds Governor Paterson to have a 40 percent favorable rating among respondents. His unfavorable rating is at 47 percent. And what's worse, only 19 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for Paterson in 2010.
In fact, if a Democratic primary for governor were held today, Paterson would be crushed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo leads 53 percent to 27 percent over Paterson. And if Paterson were to face Republican Rudy Giuliani in the general election, Giuliani would win 51 percent to 36 percent.
Also, the people of New York support raising taxes on those making $250,000 and those making more than $1 million per year. Of those surveyed, 59 percent say they support an tax increase on those making $250,000 and 77 percent support a tax increase on those making more than a million dollars per year.
And in direct opposition to Paterson's policies, 72 percent of respondents said that they oppose the budget cuts proposed by Paterson.
Steve Greenberg probably summed up these poll results best:
"David Paterson has reached a low water mark with voters since becoming Governor," said Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena New York Poll. "Between the Senate appointment process, which is still the focus of negative reports one month later, and the attacks being waged across the media by those opposed to his budget proposals, the Governor is tumbling in the polls from record highs three months ago to new record lows."
It begs the question: Is Paterson paying attention to what New Yorkers want? Does he pay attention to these polls? Is he interested in doing what is in the best interest of New Yorkers?
You can make the argument that there is a direct correlation between Paterson's approval rating and his opposition to Fair Share Tax Reform, a millionaires tax and his support for budget cuts. Most New Yorkers support FSTR and oppose budget cuts. Paterson is the opposite. Therefore, Paterson's favorable rating is 40 percent. Is that a surprise? Definitely not.
Dan Cantor, Executive Director of the Working Families Party, puts everything in perspective with this statement:
"We've said it from the beginning: New Yorkers don't want to see the Empire State go back on its commitments to our school children, the sick, the elderly and the disabled.
Faced with an enormous budget gap brought about by the global economic downturn, the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers believe that instead of deep cuts, we should ask the wealthiest New Yorkers to pay a little more in taxes. But don't take our word for it.
A new poll released today by the Siena Research Institute is the most in-depth public poll to date measuring the attitudes of New Yorkers to the Governor's budget plan. The verdict: a resounding rejection of his cuts, and a clear call for real shared sacrifice along the lines of the Working Families Party's Fair Share Tax Reform proposal. Hopefully Albany is listening."
Governor Paterson, you might want to listen to the people of New York. If you do, I guarantee you this: You will win a primary in 2010 and you will be New York's governor for four more years. If you don't, you won't even make it out of the primary.
Phillip had the story yesterday regarding the introduction of the Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009 in the New York State Senate. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Eric Schneiderman, introduced the legislation yesterday and was joined by 18 co-sponsors who are advocating for this legislation.
So what is Fair Share Tax Reform? It will provide much-needed reform to the state's tax system that, under the current system, charges the same marginal tax rate if your household income is $40,000 or $4 million. Doesn't sound too fair, right? That is where these reforms come into play.
Under the Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009, the following would change:
- If you make $250,000 or more, your tax rate will go from 6.85 percent to 8.25 percent - a 1.4 percent increase. Just from that increase alone, an estimated $568 million of new revenue will be generated.
- If you make $500,000 or more, the tax rate will increase to 8.97 percent - a 2.12 percent increase. That increase will create $823 million in new revenue.
- If you make $1 million or more, your tax rate will be set at 10.3 percent. That is an increase of 3.45 percent. This increase (you could consider this portion of the bill the "millionaires tax") will bring in an estimated $4.6 billion in new revenue.
- In all, an estimated $6 billion could be made just from this one piece of legislation.
Some of the state senators who have backed this legislation supplied statements yesterday showing their support for the Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009.
"The Governor is absolutely right that in these challenging financial times, we all need to share the sacrifice," said Senator Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan/Bronx). "That's why it is so important that we ask our State's wealthiest to contribute their fair share as well. Currently, the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay 6.5% of their total income in state and local taxes while the poorest 20% of New Yorkers pay 12.6% of their income. Fair Share Tax Reform would return fairness to our tax system while cutting our State's budget deficit in half, eliminating the need to make the most devastating cuts to our communities."
"It is very irresponsible public policy for an individual who makes $40,000 a year to be subject to the same tax rate as an individual who makes $4,000,000 a year," added Senator Neil Breslin (D-Albany).
"The Fair Share Tax Reform Act implements a progressive tax structure, making it more equitable for low-income and working families," said Senator Antoine Thompson (D-Buffalo). "Those hardest hit are typically the ones that can least afford it."
"The tax cuts provided to the wealthiest New Yorkers over the past 30 years are no longer viable during these difficult economic times," said Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn). "If we don't take this path and ask high-income New Yorkers to pay their fair share, then we will inevitably be faced with devastating cuts to health care, education and other essential community services. If there was ever a time to consider fairness in our tax code, it is now."
"The proposed legislation ensures that every New Yorker, irrespective of socio-economic status, is contributing their fair share to reduce our deficit," said Ruth Hassell Thompson (D-Mt. Vernon). "Our regressive tax system exacerbates the woes of our most vulnerable New Yorkers. A more progressive system would help us move forward as we create a more equitable system for working New Yorkers."
Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) stated, "The time has come for New Yorkers to be taxed in an equitable manner. Why should families earning $40,000 per year have the same marginal tax rate of those earning over $250,000? It doesn't make sense. We can no longer rely on increasing property taxes to pay for services. This practice is not fiscally sound or equitable and as a result, too many families are having difficulty making ends meet. This legislation is an important step in the right direction that will not only cut the State's looming deficit, but also create a fairer system of taxation."
I find the Fair Share Tax Reform Act of 2009 the perfect solution to the tax problems we have and a great way to address flaws in the system that have existed for years. Hopefully, both houses of the New York State Legislature can get behind this bill and give it the support it needs and deserves.
