NOW we realize we should have shown some fiscal responsibility
Good on Gov. Paterson. NY State is facing a $2 billion budget shortfall, but so far, he’s resisting calls to raise our taxes. Even on the evil rich.
“[T]he higher we tax even the wealthy, the more we lose population and the less job creation there is,” Gov. Paterson said in an interview Friday. “We’re pretty resigned to the fact that we’re going to have to do this with spending cuts.”
We’re already losing population, of course. Especially here in Upstate New York, where the economy-killing tax structure (we have the highest taxes of any state in the country) is even harder to shoulder because there’s less wealth here to start with — which precipitates a downward spiral, as those of us who haven’t left yet must shoulder larger and larger shares of the tax burden.
In a press conference Wednesday, the New York State Association of Counties presented county population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau for the period of April 1, 2000, through July 1, 2007. Culled from examinations of local birth and death rates, as well as migration within the state, and international migration, these estimates paint a bleak picture for much of upstate.
“Of the 33 counties that lost population since the last census, 32 are upstate,” said Jeffrey Osinski, NYSAC’s director of research and education. He added that only three of New York’s counties grew at a rate exceeding the national population growth rate of 7.2 percent.
As a whole, New York had a population growth rate of 1.7 percent, ranking the state 43rd in the nation, he said. Five counties, all of which are upstate, grew less than 1.7 percent since 2000, Mr. Osinski said. Thus, 38 counties either lost population or grew at less than the state’s overall 1.7 percent rate.
“State and county leaders are concerned about our flat growth,” said Stephen J. Acquario, NYSAC’s executive director. “The fact that 38 of our counties either lost population or have grown at less than the state rate … is a troubling trend. If it continues, we will have fewer taxpayers to pay for an increasing number of services at a time when our property taxes are already too high.”
Exactly. And of course, the people who leave first are the ones who can afford to — young people, educated people, people who may already own a second home somewhere else, people whose earning power is on the way up. The sort of people who make a region prosperous if they decide to call it home.
But here’s the punch line. From the WSJ article I linked in my first paragraph (published in yesterday’s print edition):
New York’s governor blames the state’s current shortfall, in part, on its failure to better manage revenue during the years of soaring Wall Street profits. “What’s actually more embarrassing than the fact that we have such a huge deficit now, when bonuses are down and capital gains are down, is the fact that when there was…wealth, we overspent,” says Gov. Paterson.
Yeah. I’ll say it’s “embarrassing.”
That’s what happens when “we” are spending other peoples’ money though, isn’t it, guvnor.
Tags: New York State, taxes