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Ooh, we love a revenge plot: The Observer looks at how Mayor Bloomberg's annoyance with State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver may play out during his second term. Silver infamously blocked the Mayor's quixotic (yes, now we say quixotic) plan to bring a stadium to the West Side railyards (and some might say that failed plan helped sink the city's Olympic bid) and pundits wonder if the Mayor is out for blood. Bloomberg has been talking about brining back the commuter tax, which was repealed in 1999 by Silver and marks a "low point" in his career. The Observer explains that Silver pushed through the elimination in hopes of winning a senate seat in Rockland County against the Republicans, but the Dems lost anyway. Funnily enough, in 2002, Silver had said he'd be willing to reinstate the commuter tax, if only to give NYC that annual $500 million back. In 2003, Gotham Gazette offered that Silver played a "short-sighted" political game with the epeal, which benefitted upstate voters instead of, oh, the voters in his own downtown Manhattan district!
Bloomberg and Silver were smiling in this photo op for the groundbreaking of the new Goldman Sachs building downtown, but Gothamist bets that they wanted to slug each other with those shovels.
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The rest of the state has treated NYC unfairly in 100 ways, but the repeal of the commuter tax is not one of them. The taxes paid by the businesses the commuters work in and patronize far exceeds the cost of their services -- that's why the suburbs seek to attract NYC businesses but keep out less well of residents through zoning.
Silver should have insisted on the repeal of some of the 100 ripoffs along with the commuter tax repeal. The state school funding formula is so slanted that the city would be $1 billion better off if there was no state school aid, despite our needy children. The local share of Medicaid is higher in NYC than elsewhere in the state too. These sorts of ripoffs cost a lot more than the commuter tax brought in.
we deserve the commuter tax and then some for all the grief that the state doles out to the city.
SECEDE NOW!!!!!