An unprecedented $227 billion in spending and at least $1.6 billion in tax increases are included in Governor Hochul’s proposed budget. Even though she agrees with the left’s desire for more resources, she is hardly a fiscal conservative.
She proposed an annual $810 million increase in the “MTA region” payroll tax and a three-year extension of the corporate surtax.
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According to the proposal, the state cigarette tax will increase from $4.35 to $5.35 per package. (Prepare for an increase in smuggling; this will be the highest butttax in the country.)
The “no new taxes” line has been crossed even if she has no further increases planned.
Meanwhile, education spending has increased dramatically despite a drop in student enrollment. Medicaid also sees a substantial increase.
Support for district attorneys and mental health inpatient beds, for example, are two examples of her proposed budget increases that we can get behind.
To increase state-funded spending by about $7 billion annually, when New York is already staring at a fiscal crisis before her next election, is hardly frugal.
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The left’s demands for significantly higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations have been rejected by her. But the Senate and House of Representatives will view her budget proposal as merely the starting point for discussions.
The top 1% of taxpayers already pay 40% of the state’s personal-income-tax takes, and these are the residents most able to skip out to Florida, Texas, North Carolina, etc., so it’s hard to see what principled objection she’ll make.
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Liberals can’t wait to slay the golden goose of the Empire State and eat its corpse. It would have been nice if Hochul’s first proposal had been to stop bleeding the poor bird so much.
