By Jeremy Walsh
Gov. David Paterson’s budgetary belt tightening is chafing Queens politicians, who warned that the austere budget proposal he unveiled last week to bridge a projected $13.7 billion deficit in the 2010 fiscal year would hurt the middle class.
The proposal adds $3.1 billion in new revenue initiatives while cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from school funding and health care. Some notable revenue increases include an 18 percent sales tax on non−diet soft drinks; taxing cable and satellite TV and radio services; taxing personal services like hair salons and credit rating services; and repealing a sales tax cap on gasoline.
In his state Assembly Web log, Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D−Fresh Meadows) criticized Paterson for not raising income taxes for those making $1 million or more. Paterson told reporters last week that an increase in income tax would drive people out of the state.
“It was only a few years ago that New York closed its post−9⁄11 budget gap with a temporary upper bracket income tax surcharge,” Lancman wrote. “At the time many predicted that our economy would be ruined, but between 2003 and 2007 personal incomes in New York grew faster than the national average. If differences in marginal tax rates were so important, New Jersey’s affluent would have abandoned the Garden State for our own since the tax rate for New York’s top income bracket is lower than New Jersey’s.”
Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D−Jackson Heights) also took Paterson to task for not concentrating his revenue increases on the wealthier segment of the population.
“There was much talk of all these taxes and fees and that although they call it optional, they’re still taxes and fees that the middle class New Yorker has to fork over,” he said. “There was no talk about what are the individuals that can most afford it going to do to pitch in and give their fair share.”
Peralta said the Assembly would likely focus on balancing budget cuts with revenue−increasing measures that target those making more than $250,000 a year.
In the state Senate, Sen. Frank Padavan (R−Bellerose) decried the budget’s expansion of gambling and lottery provisions, including permanent authorization for Quick Draw and eliminating the restriction on the number of hours per day the video lottery terminals may operate.
“VLTs at Belmont and the changes to Quick Draw will open the door to the rise of problem and compulsive gambling right here in our community,” Padavan said.
Paterson also caught flak from City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D−Astoria), who accused Albany of reverting to a strategy that helped nearly bankrupt the city in the 1970s.
“The state should not be taxing iPods and satellite TV,” Vallone said in a statement. “They should be taxing disco balls and platform shoes so we can complete our return to the ’70s,” Vallone said. “This slow death by taxes will hurt the economy by chasing away anyone with enough money left to move.”
But the governor received praise from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D−Manhattan), who said Paterson “deserves praise for his straightforward leadership throughout a fiscal crisis the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime.”
Silver added that the Assembly would work to ensure the budget would not place the burden of the cutbacks primarily on those who depend the most on government services.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e−mail at jwalsh@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 154.
