So NY Has A Budget…Is It Any Good?
From everything I’ve heard & read, the budget came together similar to how sausage is made, and like Paul McCartney once sang in “Ebony and Ivory”, “There is good and bad, in every [budget]“.
From the perspective of a movement progressive like myself, most efforts are going to be too little, too late for our crumbling infrastructure and struggling middle class. The right wing has been too influential too long to change things overnight.
I think the Working Families Party put it best in their analysis of the budget:
The Working Families Party said the state needs to tax the rich, “Next year,
we simply won’t be able to reduce the property tax burden that’s squeezing middle class families and make badly needed public investments in healthcare, education, and public transportation if we don’t repeal part of the excessive tax giveaways that New York’s super-rich have enjoyed for the last 15 years. This isn’t about punishing the wealthy. It’s a question of fairness and priorities.”
Holy crap! David Cay Johnson was right! We’re getting fleeced by the wealthy!
As we reported, NY-ers agree 4-1 with that sentiment. Check out WFP’s site on the subject of fair taxation for more pretty graphs and analysis.
I wonder what it will take to get our elected representatives to raise taxes on the wealthy. This is another example of how the conservative narrative over the years has pushed nearly every politician (Dem or Rethuglican) to a much more conservative position.
I keep formulating in my mind a letter to my representative in Albany about this. Something about how they can let millionaires off paying less taxes than everyone else, how they refuse to raise taxes on millionaires, but then go ahead and raise taxes on everyone (in this case, the assessing of taxes on Internet purchases). They clearly have the guts to raise taxes on everyone, but not one those who pay the least in taxes, and then cut services that the millionaires don’t need much, but the rest of us do need.
Anyway, it sure would be nice to have a link to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, so I can reference the original graph.
talk to the senators. but it would probably take campaign finance reform to get them to remove their heads from wealthy donors’ asses (or assets).
That graph looks pretty impressive. How about plugging some real dollars into it?
If the 1% is earning $250,000 a year, that’s $16,250. If the 20% is earning $15,000 annually (which is probably high), that translates to $1890. Also, how many other taxes, such as anything involved with running a business is the 1% paying that the 20% isn’t?