The Green Party said today said that the Governor's proposed budget would significantly harm the quality of life of most New Yorkers. The Green Party said the Governor's proposals would kill jobs, education and health care, while shifting more of the tax burden to regressive local property and sales taxes.
The Greens called instead for increased investment in education, environmental protection, and human service programs. The Greens said the state could raise billions of dollars by enacting a single payer universal health care system; repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws; and closing corporate tax loopholes.
The Greens faulted Pataki for hiding the $12 billion plus state budget deficit from the public in the recent election.
"Stanley Aronowitz was the only Gubernatorial candidate to speak the truth when he said it was time to tax fairly and spend wisely. Instead of cutting a billion dollars from our public schools while raising tuition by 41% at our public universities, New York should close corporate tax loopholes that allow multistate corporations to evade paying taxes on their profits made by doing business in our state. We should also make wealthy New Yorkers pay a fairer share of the burden by raising the personal income tax rate for incomes above $100,000," stated Betty Wood, Secretary of the State Green Party.
The Greens noted that even with a modest increase in the personal income tax, wealthy New Yorkers would still have a net windfall of thousands of dollars due to federal tax cuts
"Rather than using the state budget to burnish his conservative credentials for a possible place on the Republican national ticket in 2004, Pataki should be demanding that the Bush administration dramatically increase federal assistance to New York to deal with the costs and lost revenues from the September 11th attacks," said Mr. Aronowitz. Aronowitz said that Pataki should speak out against the war against Iraq and insist that the hundreds of billions of dollars needed for the war instead be invested to meet domestic needs.
The Greens said it was outrageous that at the time when the state is facing a $12 billion deficit, that the Governor is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in additional corporate welfare and tax cuts for special interests.
"The Governor wants to rob the poor and middle class New Yorkers to fatten the rich. The Governor opposes making wealthy taxpayers - his campaign contributors - pay their fair share of taxes. Yet he thinks it is grand to raise subway fares by more than 30% and college tuition by 40%, while slashing billions of dollars of funding from our schools, health care systems, mental health programs, human services, and the environment," stated Mark Dunlea, chairperson of the Green Party of New York State.
"The stock market collapsed not because of September 11th but because of corporate greed and criminal behavior in defrauding the public. The solution is not more corporate welfare and tax cuts for the wealthy but increased prosecution of corporate criminals and increased accountability for expenditures of public funds. No matter what the problem is, Pataki's solution is always more tax cuts for his campaign contributors." said Jim Maceda, Treasurer of the Green Party.
The Greens said that the Governor's proposal to raise the shelter allowance for welfare participants was grossly inadequate and would contribute to the record level of homelessness in the state. The Governor was forced to make the proposal in an effort to settle a decade old lawsuit where the courts have ruled that the state failed to provide sufficient funding to enable families with children to obtain adequate housing.
The Greens made a number of proposals on how the state could save or raise billions of dollars.
- Enact a single payer, universal health care system instead of raising fees and cutting services by a billion dollars. The state would save billions of dollars annually in health care costs if it adopted a single payer health care program such as the plan introduced by Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried and cosponsored by dozens of state legislators. With private health insurance, as much as 30 cents out of every dollar goes to paperwork, waste and profits, not to providing health care. A single payer system works like medicare, with one program paying all bills, while preserving freedom of choice as to your medical provider. Billions of dollars would be saved by a single payer system; these savings could be invested in providing health care to the three million New Yorkers who lack health care coverage. Instead, the Governor is proposing to reduce access to health care and raise fees and taxes on health care policies and programs by hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws and the war on drugs. The State would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually by treating drug abuse as a public health problem rather than a criminal one. The state spends more than $700 million annually to house more than 20,000 inmates convicted of drug offenses.
- Stop the $5 Billion Rebate to Wall Street. New York collects about $5 billion a year through the stock transfer tax but then refunds the entire amount to Wall Street. In this time of economic crisis, it makes sense for the state to at least retain a portion of the proceeds to help resolve the budget deficit.
- Reclaim $120 Million Annually from the Bottle Bill. If the state recovered the unclaimed deposits from the bottle bill, New York would raise up to $120 million annually. "Since the Governor is so fond of so-called ‘one shots', why doesn't he proposed raising more than a billion dollars by recapturing all the unclaimed deposits since the bottle bill was signed into law 20 years ago, " added Roger Snyder, a Green state committee member from Suffolk County.
