NY Considers Motorists Soft Targets for Taxes
Like our friends up in the RenCen citadel, New York State has been taking in less than it spends. In a big way. In fact, The Empire State has racked-up a $15.4b deficit. A fact that somehow didn’t make it into The New York Times story on Governor Paterson’s plans to drain $9b from Albany’s pig trough and tax the beJesus out of anything that moves or breathes within his state’s boundaries. We’re talking 137 new or increased taxes and fees. And guess who takes it on the metaphorical chin? iPod users! Not to mention… “The tax on car rentals would rise to 6 percent from 5 percent… Taxes on gasoline, cable and satellite TV service, cigars and flavored malt beverages would also go up. And the cost of owning and operating a car would rise significantly, with 16 fee increases.” Including (but not mentioned in the article) a five percent tax on any vehicle that sells for over $60k. TTAC’s UK readers will roll their eyes at any idea that NY drivers will crumble under the yoke of such a puny extra burden, but it looks like a slippery slope to me.
More by Robert Farago
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So, we are going to cut spending now? How do you propose to do that? We could shut down the schools. Fire all the cops and firefighters. Maybe release all the prisoners from jails. Stop building and repairing roads. If you want schools, cops, firefighters, jails, and roads, you've got to pay for them somehow. If you don't, I'm sure you can catch a flight to Somalia. Also keep in mind that most states aren't allowed to run a budget deficit (unlike the Federal government). So, when economic times are bad, they have to raise taxes. Now, they should be allowed to run a deficit, because raising taxes in poor economic times is a bad idea, but that's the situation.
The state shouldn't cut spending - I deserve all of the services it currently provides. The state shouldn't raise my income taxes - it should raise income taxes on someone else. The state shouldn't tax the behaviors that I want to engage in - it should tax the behaviors that others engage in.
@ Geotpf: I'm saying stupid spending should be cut. The $40 million tax dollars Rochester wasted on the ferry to Toronto is a perfect example of this. No one from Toronto is going to come to Rochester. Repeat business from the NY side would probably be a very small % of tickets sold. It's doubtful you could ever load and move enough freight to make a profit. In light of all that, the city was moronic enough to give the money to a bunch of hucksters with no prior experience running a profitable ferry operation. These clowns then ran out and spec'd a custom ferry that had its hull built in Australia and used some flaky German diesels for its powerplants rather than a CAT or Detroit Diesel mill. That $40 million is now lost after the ferry operation went into bankruptcy. They were able to recover some costs through the sale of the boat, but the city still has nothing to show for that stupid spending.
How much is that $40 million compared to the whole budget? One should expect from their representatives that they try not to was money, not that they don't was money.