Two days after being dubbed the front-runner in the mayoral race, Bill de Blasio is continuing to hammer home his populist message of The Tale of Two Cities by reiterating his plan to impose greater taxes on the rich. "Nearly 400,000 millionaires call New York home, while almost half of our neighbors live at or near the poverty line," the candidate said in an email to supporters this morning. That number is 46% [PDF], to be precise.
De Blasio would raise the city's income tax on earners making more than $500K annually from 3.876% to 4.3% to pay for 50,000 more children to receive pre-K education.
The Post points out that in 2010, de Blasio said "Punishing Wall Street, taxing Wall Street into oblivion, couldn't be worse for New York City, and I oppose that." But an increase of less than a half of a percent hardly seems like relegating anyone to "oblivion."
De Blasio's message should resonate with voters who saw their income drop by 7% from 2007 to 2011, while in 2011 the 80th percentile of earners made 6.1 times more than those in the 20th percentile.
Then again, doesn't de Blasio look stupid sometimes? Ha Ha Ha.
You can read new two interviews with the candidate here and here.
