Suitably Flip

I ♥ the 70s

If you do too, then get ready for an Empire State retro-extravaganza.

This state was getting overcrowded anyway.

New York's ruling Democratic trium virate took a giant generational leap backward yesterday to the destructive days of John Lindsay, Abe Beame and Nelson Rockefeller.

The budget created by Gov. Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is a monstrously bloated, tax-and-spend plan that, in one fell swoop, reverses a three-decade-long effort to strengthen business and prevent taxpayers from fleeing the state.

The wrecking ball of a new state budget, approved in Kremlin-like secrecy by the troika, also ranks as one of the biggest betrayals in process and substance by a governor in New York history.

How monstrously bloated, you ask?

A Big Apple family of five with a combined income of $450,000 will end up shelling out at least an additional $5,200 a year more under the budget agreed to by Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders.
...
They'll fork over $4,320 extra in state income tax alone thanks to the "millionaire's tax," which whacks households earning over $300,000 with a 1 percent hike.

The Post reached that number by adjusting their taxable income with $3,000 in deductions for their three children, and the $15,000 standard deduction.

As steep as their new bill is, their more affluent neighbors will be hit even harder. New Yorkers who earn over $500,000 will see their personal income tax rate jump from 6.85 percent to 8.97 percent.

Lamented a prescient econo-political blogger last November in re the tax implications of the new power structure in Albany...

New York's nearly superlatively punitive tax scheme is - amazingly - the product of a legislature whose upper house has been in Republican hands almost exclusively since the late 1930s.  While Democrats have long-controlled the State Assembly, the State Senate was New York's final GOP holdout once Client #9 became Governor.
...
Albany's screwy political architecture means the power in each house is unusually concentrated in the hands of the majority (something Senate Democrats and Assembly Republicans have historically lamented in unison).

In all likelihood, this handover thus heralds a dramatic shift toward even more liberal economic policies in New York State.  Perhaps now we can finally win back our #1 ranking from New Jersey as the worst business tax climate in the country, having wallowed at 2nd worst for the last few years.

For a sense of how much economic damage this might inflict on American business generally, consider the fact that the 40-some Fortune 500 companies based in New York City alone account for well over a trillion dollars in annual income (roughly the GDP of Brazil).

State Senate Dems undoubtedly salivate at the thought of this bottomless piggybank which they can now use without obstruction to fund their bloated adventures in big government.  Past experience has given us little reason to assume they'll stop to consider the impact of increasingly punitive taxes on job creation, the value of investment portfolios (retirement accounts) that hold stock in large companies, or the general health of the state economy, already nearly crippled by a tax scheme that gives capital and successful businesses every incentive to relocate across state lines or overseas.

Comments

I ♥ the 70s

If you do too, then get ready for an Empire State retro-extravaganza.

This state was getting overcrowded anyway.

New York's ruling Democratic trium virate took a giant generational leap backward yesterday to the destructive days of John Lindsay, Abe Beame and Nelson Rockefeller.

The budget created by Gov. Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is a monstrously bloated, tax-and-spend plan that, in one fell swoop, reverses a three-decade-long effort to strengthen business and prevent taxpayers from fleeing the state.

The wrecking ball of a new state budget, approved in Kremlin-like secrecy by the troika, also ranks as one of the biggest betrayals in process and substance by a governor in New York history.

How monstrously bloated, you ask?

A Big Apple family of five with a combined income of $450,000 will end up shelling out at least an additional $5,200 a year more under the budget agreed to by Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders.
...
They'll fork over $4,320 extra in state income tax alone thanks to the "millionaire's tax," which whacks households earning over $300,000 with a 1 percent hike.

The Post reached that number by adjusting their taxable income with $3,000 in deductions for their three children, and the $15,000 standard deduction.

As steep as their new bill is, their more affluent neighbors will be hit even harder. New Yorkers who earn over $500,000 will see their personal income tax rate jump from 6.85 percent to 8.97 percent.

Lamented a prescient econo-political blogger last November in re the tax implications of the new power structure in Albany...

New York's nearly superlatively punitive tax scheme is - amazingly - the product of a legislature whose upper house has been in Republican hands almost exclusively since the late 1930s.  While Democrats have long-controlled the State Assembly, the State Senate was New York's final GOP holdout once Client #9 became Governor.
...
Albany's screwy political architecture means the power in each house is unusually concentrated in the hands of the majority (something Senate Democrats and Assembly Republicans have historically lamented in unison).

In all likelihood, this handover thus heralds a dramatic shift toward even more liberal economic policies in New York State.  Perhaps now we can finally win back our #1 ranking from New Jersey as the worst business tax climate in the country, having wallowed at 2nd worst for the last few years.

For a sense of how much economic damage this might inflict on American business generally, consider the fact that the 40-some Fortune 500 companies based in New York City alone account for well over a trillion dollars in annual income (roughly the GDP of Brazil).

State Senate Dems undoubtedly salivate at the thought of this bottomless piggybank which they can now use without obstruction to fund their bloated adventures in big government.  Past experience has given us little reason to assume they'll stop to consider the impact of increasingly punitive taxes on job creation, the value of investment portfolios (retirement accounts) that hold stock in large companies, or the general health of the state economy, already nearly crippled by a tax scheme that gives capital and successful businesses every incentive to relocate across state lines or overseas.