Results tagged “assemblyspeakersilver”

What's going on when Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is suddenly the voice of reason? Referring to the messy, inconclusive negotiations on aiding the MTA, Silver said, "Stop the partisan bickering. Forget about politics. That's for November 2010. It's not for now," in hopes that State Senate Republicans will help out.

According to the NY Times, the NY State Senate Democratic leaders "will seek income tax increases on at least some affluent New Yorkers and a sales tax increase of a quarter of 1 percent to help balance the state budget." An anonymous Senate official said, "The hole is too deep to dig ourselves out by cuts alone. The debate now is over where to start." The Times previously reported some of their proposed tax hikes, which would create three new tax brackets: $250,000-499,999; $500,000-999,999; and $1 million and over; there is also a separate proposal to raise taxes for households making $500,000 and more. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver supports taxing upper income levels. Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, Silver and Governor Paterson will supposedly meet in private to hash out the new state budget.

As he grapples with a $15.4 billion budget deficit for this year and next, Governor Paterson voiced his opposition to taxing the rich. According to the Post, Paterson explained, "What I'm saying is if you tax the rich right now, while the economy is disintegrating, you're going to lose jobs and you're also going to lose from the tax base as people leave the state. In my opinion, you're [compounding] the problem, not eradicating it. I don't think that taxing the rich is the best way to go right now." (That's also a refrain Mayor Bloomberg has made.) On the other hand, Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver is all for taxing upper income brackets: In remarks to the United Teachers Federation, Silver said, "Clearly, as a state, we need to ask ourselves if the best way to balance the budget is to make deep cuts in our classrooms or to ask the wealthiest New Yorkers to contribute a little bit more?" Which makes the Legislature's and Paterson's apparent agreement on a budget (press conference happening in Albany now) more interesting!