The Governor must have thought he was clever by coming up with nearly two hundred different taxes and fee increases to cover more than a third of the budget deficit. According to his office, $6 billion dollars is expected to be raised by making everyone pay more for everything from soda and buying liquor in the grocery store to DMV charges and increases in CUNY/SUNY tuition. Then the remaining $9 billion will be cut by reducing funding, especially in the education and health care sectors. Yet nowhere is there mention of a millionaire's tax. Well, if leaders in the legislature are serious then it'll be put on the budgetary table regardless of what the Governor wants.
From Crain's:
“When you’re saying to a guy who buys a Pepsi with his lunch that you have to pay more to live in New York, but you’re not saying to the Pepsi CEO that he has to pay more to live in New York, it calls into question what government’s priorities are,” says Assemblyman Jonathan Bing, D-Manhattan.
The temporary surcharge that expired three years ago pushed tax rates above 7% for individuals earning $100,000 or more. Last summer, the Assembly passed a bill to cut property taxes and raise taxes to 7.65% on income over $1 million and to 8.6% on income over $5 million. The measure died in the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Republicans. Democrats will comprise a majority of the Senate next year, though leadership of the chamber remains unsettled.
Mr. Bing and many of his Democratic Assembly colleagues favor an income tax increase on individuals earning $1 million or more annually. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the most powerful figure in state government next to Mr. Paterson, appears ready to insist on such a tax as part of any budget agreement.
“We will demand that all New Yorkers—not just those that depend most on government services—share the sacrifice,” Mr. Silver said in a statement.
I wouldn't trust Silver as far as I could throw him, so his actions will have to speak for him when the budget battle really begins.
Assemblyman Bing is exactly right with his Pepsi comparison. People need to pay their fair share and so far the wealthy are left unscathed. The rich didn't disappear last time there was a surcharge and they won't leave en masse this time either. That argument is fearmongering tactic and nothing else. The only people leaving New York are the ones that can't afford the high rents and taxes hoisted on the working and middle class. A surcharge on the income rate for the fablously wealthy won't hurt their bank accounts, but the money coming in that way will save plenty of programs that help those that are just trying to get by.
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