Commuter Tax
PolitickerNY
Page Makes the Case for Cancelled Rebates
New York City’s budget director Mark Page is testifying at a City Council hearing at City Hall right now about Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to help close the city’s multi-billion budget gap. read more »
Council Members: This Tax, Or the Other One?
Council members Simcha Felder and Peter Vallone Jr. are circulating a letter in support of re-instating the commuter tax.
The letter, sent to other council members, argues that reinstating the commuter tax and closing costly loophole in the state pension law are crucial to the city's budget. "[T]he alternative," the letter says, is "further cuts to city services and a proposed mid-year property tax rate hike."
The letter pits the commuter tax, which Democrats in the State Senate don't want to do, squarely against the property tax increase--which Democrats in the City Council don't want to do.
The letter, which was forwarded to me by an interested reader, is below. read more »
Bloomberg Waits for Assembly Majority on Commuter Tax
After Sheldon Silver dropped the news that he's open to reinstituting the commuter tax, Michael Bloomberg told reporters in City Hall that he himself is also in favor of bringing it back. Bloomberg stopped short of demanding Republican state lawmakers take action.
“I’ve always thought it was a very bad mistake to give up the commuter tax back when it was done,” the mayor said. “I’ve been screaming about the commuter tax for all the time I’ve been here.”
New York City's commuter tax was lifted in 1999.
Bloomberg added, “The fact that the speaker is in favor of it is encouraging, but there’s 145-odd members in the Assembly, and we’re going to need a majority of them, as well, if we are to reinstitute it.”
That, essentially, was the lesson of the failure of congestion pricing.
