FREEZE PROPERTY TAXES
Text of a Memorandum
sent to New York State Legislature from Daniel B. Walsh dated
April 30, 2003.
April
30, 2003
| TO:
|
Members
of the Legislature |
| FROM: |
Daniel
B. Walsh |
| RE:
|
Freeze
taxes, don't raise taxes |
For nine
straight years, the New York State Legislature has cut taxes so that working
men and women would have a better chance at a good job in the Empire State.
I hope you will not reverse that proud record now.
The revenue
measures being proposed would raise sales taxes, increase personal income
taxes and repeal incentives for major business investments at the very
time we need them most-now.
Every one
of these tax increases would be a mistake. Just as the tax cuts you enacted
have brought thousands of new jobs to New York, these tax increases would
drive thousands of good jobs away.
Private-sector
workers have already been punished-and now are being asked to bear a greater
burden, so that their public brethren share no burden. Over the
last two years, more than 300,000 taxpaying New Yorkers have lost their
jobs. Others have taken pay cuts, reduced work weeks, or at best gone
without raises. Now, at the behest of the unions representing public-sector
workers, you are told that higher taxes on working families and on employers
are the answer.
Higher taxes
are on the table even though-indeed, in large part because- the Legislature
is taking no action to stop the waste of taxpayers' dollars by repealing
the Wicks Law, eliminating lawsuit abuse, reforming costly prevailing-wage
rules, or taking other steps that mayors, town supervisors, school boards
and business leaders have requested for years.
I know you
are concerned about property taxes. But the idea that higher state taxes
will mean lower local taxes is a delusion. It is the oldest canard in
Albany. Like Lucy with the football, year after year someone sets this
game up, we run down for the kick, and the taxpayers end up landing on
their backs-with higher property taxes. The way to cut local taxes
is to cut local costs, not increase state taxes.
Mandate relief
is one way to cut local costs. Another way, as we suggested yesterday,
is to freeze the pay of public employees. This will cut the growth in
costs, maintain vital public services, and, most important, provide tremendous
fiscal relief to localities. Our Public Policy Institute calculates that
a one-year freeze on state and local government wages could save the state,
its localities and school districts a total $2 billion to $3 billion.
For local taxpayers the savings would amount to the equivalent of $1.5
billion to $2.3 billion in additional state aid.
Newspaper
reports and Budget Division estimates indicate that the legislative budget
would raise spending by more than the inflation rate. If the Legislature
cannot resist union demands for higher spending and higher taxes in the
face of this historically negative fiscal environment, I fear that business
and investors will conclude that you never will.
We have made
enormous progress in recent years, convincing corporate decision-makers
around the country and around the world that New York State has changed.
The proposed tax increases will send a very different message-that New
York is going backward, rather than forward. The inevitable result will
be that thousands of working men and women will lose the opportunity for
a good job in the Empire State.
Finally,
the business community offers this challenge.
If the Legislature
is truly convinced that higher state taxes and spending will hold down
local property taxes, it should insist that this be done. There's a
simple way to do that-enact a one-year freeze on property taxes.
We believe
that state tax increases will damage our economy. We believe that mandate
relief and a wage freeze are better ways to help localities cut costs.
But if you think higher state taxes will hold down local taxes, stand
up for your beliefs and enact a freeze on property taxes at the same time.
Let's convert some of this wishful thinking into reality.
