Just as Spitzer's ratings were heading up, he came out and angered a subset of the community that is passionate about democracy voting drinking malt liquor and smoking Swisher's Sweets. What could the Governor have possibly done to piss these derelicts off (my apologies to the classy working people that drink OE800 and smoke those awful cigarillos)?
He raised their taxes.
From The NY Times:
He plans to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit partly by sharply raising taxes on small cigars like White Owl and Swisher Sweets and even more for malt liquors like Olde English “800” and Colt 45. The governor’s proposal would lift the malt liquor tax to $2.54 a gallon from 11 cents a gallon.
For a 40-ounce malt liquor, that would mean a tax of 79 cents per bottle, up from less than a penny, if the proposal is approved by the State Legislature. “It’s messed up, it’s wrong!” said Darryl, who looked as though he was in his 50s and was bundled up against the cold. “You got mostly poor people like me buying malt liquor.” [...]
Just how much prices will rise is a little unclear, but consumers will notice.
The governor expects to raise as much as $5 million a year in revenue from the extra cigarillo tax and $18 million from the malt liquor tax.
Now bums across the city will have to work harder to panhandle and raise the extra dollar to get the same effect from that cold 40 ouncer. In all seriousness, this is actually seen as a good thing to the bodega owners that sell the product, because frankly, they are tired of their malt liquor customers.
A and A Market and Deli, at 45th Street and 10th Avenue, used to sell as many as 40 cases of malt liquor a week, but it became too bothersome to stock. “We have arguments here, very loud arguments,” said Mustafa Saleh, 27, the deli’s manager. “They don’t want to pay.”
When customers did pay, it was annoying, he said. “They paid in change,” he said, “$2.50 in nickels, dimes and pennies; that’s the kind of money they have.”
Honestly for me this is like paying for the state budget deficit with nickels, dimes and pennies. $23 million dollars is a lot to an average person but is a small percentage of what our state spends in the course of a year. It's nice that Spitzer is looking to raise money for state coffers, but why not tax The Glenlivet and 63' Chardonnays first. They certainly do not need to panhandle for that booze.
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