Now that the Governor's officially proposed budget is out, we can see many different taxes and plenty of budget cuts. Besides health care, no sector is being hurt the most than our public education system. University students are being smacked with large tuition increases instead of having the CUNY and SUNY budgets slashed but the kids that are in grades K-12 are going to have their school's budgets cut to the tune of $206 million in NYC alone.
From The NY Daily News:
Gov. Paterson is expected to unveil a doom-and-gloom $121 billion spending plan Tuesday that slices $206 million from New York City schools.
In addition to the 3.3% school aid cut, Paterson will look to slash local aid funding to the city by $244 million, a source said.
The nearly half a billion dollars in city cuts do not take into consideration other planned reductions for the city or the Medicaid cuts city hospitals are facing.
Everyone is going to be hurting from the next budget, at least as it stands now. If the Legislature would stand up and demand that the rich take some responsibility for what is going on with a millionaire's tax or a more progressively scaled income tax that could help the majority of taxpayers. Of course I won't be holding my breath, no matter how much the WFP and the majority of New York wants to see tax increases for the wealthy coupled with budget cuts. Funding education is essential to our economic growth in the future, denying them a quality schooling will cost far more in the long run than hacking off a small slice of wealth at the very top.
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