Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday said he’s considering a wide variety of ways to close an unexpected budget gap, from his own ideas to create more private-sector jobs to a tax on millionaires pushed by the Assembly’s Democratic majority.
In a round of radio interviews Wednesday, Cuomo wouldn’t rule out anything, including the millionaire tax he strongly opposed in the current budget.
“For the first time, he didn’t flat-out deny that he would do it, so we’ll have to see,” said E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute.
The governor said he is embracing “the best thinking” as the state faces an unexpected $350 million deficit this year and a projected $3.5 billion deficit next year. One idea is from an influential senator who is preparing to release his own proposal to revise how New Yorkers are taxed.
Sen. Jeffrey Klein, a member of the Independent Democratic Conference that works closely with Cuomo and the Senate’s Republican majority, proposes higher income tax rates for New Yorkers making more than $250,000 a year. That’s similar to the so-called millionaire tax that expires Dec. 31. But Klein’s proposal would use all $4 billion generated by those tax increases to give tax breaks to middle-class New Yorkers and issue it in debit cards.
That would mean a typical debit card worth about $1,165 for a family of four making $100,000. A single filer making $30,000 would get $466. The tax breaks would be funded by a typical increase of $2,000 in taxes for New Yorkers with income more than $250,000. The tax rate would rise with income, hitting 10 percent for those making $3 million a year…..
“The biggest problem for the state is the enormous, recurring structural budget gap starting next year and into the future,” said E.J. McMahon of the conservative-leaning Empire Center. “Cuomo clearly hopes that starting in 2021, (Democratic presidential candidate Joseph) Biden and a Democratic Congress will provide states and local government a couple of year’s worth of added stimulus. Read More
Ed McKinley
ALBANY — When the New York Constitution was reorganized nearly 100 years ago to give the governor more power over the budget process, noted there was a risk of making “the governor a czar."
M Read More
Michael Gormley
ALBANY — A new study by a conservative think tank says President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law gave most New Yorkers a tax cut, even as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo insists on repealing the measure because he says it will cost New Yo Read More
Johan Sheridan
ALBANY, N.Y. () — The Empire Center filed a against the state Department of Health on Friday.
“This case isn’t about assigning blame or embarrassing political leaders,” said Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s Read More
The Empire Center first reported Tuesday that grants — 226 of them, totaling $46 million, to recipients selected by the governor and individual state lawmakers — seemed to still be going ahead. Read More
With lingering questions about how the novel coronavirus killed thousands of New Yorkers who lived in nursing homes, a group of state lawmakers is pushing to create an independent commission to get answers from the state Department of Health. Read More
“The importance of discussing this and getting the true facts out is to understand what did and didn’t happen so we can learn from it in case this happens again,” Hammond said. Read More
No doubt, the Health Department and the governor would like this report to be the final word on the subject.
But if it’s all the same with them, we’d still like a truly independent review. Read More