Cuomo: Mayor’s plan could create ‘two states’

02.16.2014

UPDATE: New York's Elitist Inbreeding Infighting 

ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo went one step further on Friday in his argument against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's pre-kindergarten tax, saying the state's existing tax structure makes it possible to expand the program.

In doing so, Cuomo embraced the state's millionaires' tax, something he has been reluctant to do in the past.

The surcharge was imposed in 2009 during the Paterson administration, when Democrats controlled state government. Cuomo resisted its renewal in 2011, but at the last moment agreed to renew most all of it, and trim some middle-income rates so it could be presented as a tax cut.

During a radio interview on WNYC today, Cuomo used the tax as a defense of his own pre-K plan.

“I don't believe we need additional revenue to do it," Cuomo said. "I don't believe we need an additional tax to do it. I don't believe the answer is always more money. I believe we can fund it from the existing resources. Millionaires' tax, millionaires' surcharge—we have one! It was put in place, I've extended it and it is still in existence. So we have a millionaires' surcharge which is one of the reasons why we have the resources to pay for pre-K statewide.”

The state's millionaires tax is currently set to expire at the end of 2017, and a Cuomo-convened tax commissionrecommended recently that the state allow it to expire on schedule, though the governor himself hasn't committed to that timetable in his public comments.

In his interview this morning, Cuomo continued making the point that allowing New York City to raise taxes might exacerbate educational inequality, an argument that some upstate elected officials have echoed this week. The governor referenced his father's seminal speech to the 1984 Democratic National Convention to set up a new sound bite aimed at the core of de Blasio's argument.

“I know the tale of two cities very well. I was in the audience in 1984, in the Democratic convention when, I think, it was articulated very well. The answer to a tale of two cities is not to create two states,” Cuomo said. “We want a statewide pre-K system. The millionaires in New York City are going to fund the system, in large part, because we have a millionaires' tax.”

UPDATE: De Blasio spokeswoman Marti Adams responds, in a statement emailed to Capital: "The Mayor and the Governor share a commitment to ending inequality but an honest assessment of the Mayor’s plan for universal pre–K leaves no doubt: it’s best for the people of New York state as well. It provides free, universal pre-k for the children of New York City with the funding to pay for it."

source