Friday, January 12, 2007

Tax Relief on the Way?

As we have already pointed out, there are members of the City Council who have begun to clamor for the next city budget, one that has a projected $2.2 billion surplus, to include a tax cut. One council member, Mike McMahon of Staten Island has proposed a 10% across the board property tax reduction and he is supported by Finance Chair David Weprin and a number of other law makers who represent predominately homeowner districts.

Now in today's NY Sun the paper editorializes in favor of the cut in order to "stimulate New Yorkers to work more, but more, and invest more..." AS Simcha Felder tells the NY Post this morning, reminding everyone that the 2002 tax hike wasn't meant to be permanent, "A 400 rebate is nice...But, in principle, it's not doing what we committed to do, which is giving them {tax payers} a tax cut."

Mayor Mike, however, reverting to his big government philosophy, is not committing to any reduction and tells the Post, "Down the road,we know are expenses are going to be higher than they are now." Of course they are.

The situation couldn't be any different because the mayor has never been a tax cutting-reduce government spending kind of guy. Which is exactly what the next mayor should be doing as a first priority. It is an important way to make business more productive and living easier in New York.