New York Needs More Investment Not Cuts
What stands in the way of New York having fully funded schools, and a healthcare system that can handle a pandemic level crisis? Who can help excluded workers, ensure that none of our residents fall through the cracks, and fund important infrastructure products and climate initiatives? Three people, State Senate President Andrea Stewart Cousins, House Speaker Carl Heastie, and Governor Andrew Cuomo. Together they are known as the one woman and two men in the room. Over the last week, they have been negotiating the content of the state budget and will decide the fate of millions of New Yorkers. As of today, April 2nd, the budget is past due.
New York State’s governor has an excessive and unbalanced amount of power when it comes to crafting the state budget. For the last ten years, Governor Cuomo has forced an austerity budget on New Yorkers. Rather than raising adequate revenue, he has chosen to cut state aid to schools and Medicaid, hurting hospitals and healthcare facilities, forcing some to close, even during the Covid crisis. Cuomo’s cuts cost us in more ways than one. Usually, they lead to increases in property taxes and local fees to cover the shortfall in state funding.
The Governor says he wants to create a green sustainable future but refuses to fund the job and infrastructure programs needed to achieve that future. He bullies legislators with threats of shutting down the government if they don’t vote the way he wants. He throws the people crumbs and expects us to fight over them.
At a time when we need a leader we can trust, Governor Cuomo is embroiled in multiple scandals. In the last few weeks, many things have come to light, from covering up nursing home deaths, sexual harassment allegations, and giving special privileges and access to covid-19 testing to his family and friends. With all that billionaires have given more than $580,000 to his campaign coffers. Many doubt Governor Cuomo’s ability to be the leader we can trust to do what’s right for New York and have called for him to resign.
We can put our hopes in the leadership in the State Senate and Assembly to fight for the revenue needed for our communities. For this to happen Senator Stewart Cousins and Speaker Carl Heastie need to hold the line in negotiations with Governor Cuomo. They can start by keeping the over seven billion in new revenue proposed in the House and Senate budgets. Then they can fight for additional revenue as proposed in the Invest In Our New York Act. Six revenue bills would raise over 50 billion in new revenue every year on the ultra-wealthy while leaving the middle and working-class untouched.
As it is, New York has a regressive income tax system that shifts the burden of taxes on the working and middle class. The ultra-wealthy aren’t being taxed like the middle-class, most of their wealth is either inherited or made through investments, neither of which are taxed significantly. Over the last year, during the worst pandemic in recent history, millions of New Yorkers lost their jobs and slipped into poverty, while America’s billionaire class increased their wealth by four trillion dollars.
In response to a state in crisis and decades of unfair taxes on the middle and working class, a large coalition of grassroots groups, social justice organizations, unions, political parties, and state legislators added much-needed progressive revenue to the one-house budget. These Invest In Our NY proposals would generate between 50 and 70 billion dollars annually. Albany compromised and came up with around 7 billion, leaving out substantial revenue like a financial transfer tax on Wall Street and a wealth tax on billionaires.
On April 1st our state representatives should have voted on the budget. This a document that decides more than how we will spend money, it defines who we are morally as a society. Do we care about the wellbeing of our most vulnerable, the future of our children, and the health and safety of communities, or are we more interested in continuing tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy? We need leaders who will make decisions that work for all of us, not just the wealthy few. The future of New York depends on it.