No Tax Increase Means Less Money?

There's a degree of anxiety about Albany's ability to get us out of this fiscal mess. And rightly so.

To date, no idea trickling out of the state capitol has spared the lesser earners among us.

East River tolls and an MTA fare hike are both sound revenue sources, but they only prop up a system that's wildly mismanaged and underfunded anyway. The Seminal said it right...

Of course, a 28% fare increase —more than a dollar extra for every round trip commute—would effectively (if not officially) be a tax increase. . . except this one would primarily affect the [lower] end of the economic ladder.

It seems like Gov. David Patterson's adamant stance against an income tax increase may only hurt the needier among us. His reasoning seems rather odd...

Mr. Paterson [believes] an income tax increase would do more harm than good by causing people to move out of the state.

Yet maybe a commuter tax hike would motivate out-of-State workers to seek employment out of New York - namely the City?

The math of all of this works out rather simply...

For millionaires, who don’t take the subway all that much—no new taxes; for working class New Yorkers, who do use the subway daily to get to and from work—how does paying an extra $260 per year sound? (That’s per person—if there are kids that use the subways and busses to get to school, multiply accordingly.)

Where's the fairness in that?