{"id":3141,"date":"2011-01-11T10:33:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T15:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/?p=3141"},"modified":"2011-01-11T10:33:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T15:33:02","slug":"cuomos-property-tax-cap-is-an-ugly-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2011\/01\/cuomos-property-tax-cap-is-an-ugly-solution.html","title":{"rendered":"Cuomo’s property tax cap is an ugly solution"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andrew<\/a>
Cuomo advocates for a property tax cap in NY (Photo by Michael Nagle-Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made a 2% property-tax cap a centerpiece<\/a> of his new administration.\u00a0 The state’s local taxes are now 79 percent above the national average, making them the highest among the 50 states.\u00a0 Residents and businesses alike agree something has to be done.\u00a0 However, there remains great debate<\/a> on whether or not a tax cap is the best solution.<\/p>\n

At first blush, the cap would seem to address the most direct cause of the financial pain.\u00a0 Taxes are high and continue to rise in excess of the rate of inflation.\u00a0 Stop that.\u00a0 But considered from the municipality’s point of view, this constrains revenue, but not spending.<\/p>\n

There should be a relationship between revenue and spending, but for counties, towns, and school districts in New York many programs are mandated by the state or the federal government. Mandates include<\/a> special education, which at more than $24,000 per student is far more expensive in New York than in most other states.\u00a0 And lawmakers have added 257 additional requirements to federal disabilities laws, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.\u00a0 Further, school and municipal retirement and health insurance programs are set up by the state, but paid for locally.<\/p>\n

This means that much of the spending is not under the control of the governments whose revenue has just been capped.\u00a0 Local communities cannot run in deficit, meaning that non-mandated spending must be cut or the state must start providing funding for the mandates it has issued.\u00a0 If the state doesn’t step up, expect layoffs of teachers, firemen, and police.\u00a0 Road and sidewalk maintenance will be curtailed.\u00a0 Playgrounds, community centers, and other popular local services and facilities will suffer.<\/p>\n

The bet is that the dysfunctional NY state legislature won’t allow the local communities to suffer and will approve state spending to cover mandates.\u00a0 But this is the same legislature who must pass the property tax cap.\u00a0 In essence, they would be approving a tax cap in an effort to force themselves to approve paying for mandates.\u00a0 Wouldn’t a sane body just deal with the mandates rather than trying to hold itself hostage?<\/p>\n

Complicating this matter is Cuomo’s proposal that a 60% majority of local voters could pass a resolution to exceed the cap.\u00a0 The likely result being that relatively affluent communities would opt to maintain the schools and community programs in their area, while less economically able areas would have to suffer the loss of services.\u00a0 So the legislative bet is really that Albany will step in to prevent the economic suffering in the poorer regions of the state.\u00a0 Given Albany’s history, there will be long odds on that wager.<\/p>\n

It may well be that the property tax cap is the only program Cuomo can get passed.\u00a0 The legislature has ignored the mandate problem for decades, and there’s no reason to believe they will act without some sort of leverage.\u00a0 This may be the best tool available.\u00a0 But citizens should be aware that while it sounds like a tax cap is in their best interests, the real objective is to create local pain such that Albany can be spurred to action.\u00a0 If they act, they will be rescuing you from themselves\u2014a result they are completely capable of doing without making you suffer in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citizens should be aware that while it sounds like a tax cap is in their best interests, the real objective is to create local pain such that Albany can be spurred to action to rescue you from suffering they created.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[94,43,92,93],"class_list":["post-3141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-cuomo","tag-economic-policy","tag-new-york","tag-tax-cap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3141"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3149,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions\/3149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}