Morning Read: How would the Greens do it?
Howie Hawkins, who’s running for governor on the Green Party ticket, was in Glens Falls over the weekend.
He laid out his agenda for balancing the state’s budget without slashing programs. This from the Glens Falls Post Star.
According to Hawkins’ campaign, a stock transfer tax, which serves as a trading fee of one twentieth of 1 percent for up to $350 per trade, would have brought in $16 billion to the state last year.
Another $8 billion would be brought in from a progressive income tax system, where taxes would be up to 15 percent for the wealthy.
And $10 billion would come from a bankers’ bonus tax of 50 percent, Hawkins said, putting that in the context of trillions of dollars in bank bailouts.
So here’s a question: Is Hawkins’ agenda any more fringey than that of tea party favorite Carl Paladino?
If it weren’t for Paladino’s personal wealth, would he be grabbing headlines and finding such a big bully pulpit for his ideas?
Your thoughts welcome.
Tags: politics
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It would be great if NPR could give Mr. Hawkins some air time before election day.
Mr. Hawkins has a far more detailed agenda that Mr. Cuomo and is more reflective of mainstream political positions in NYS – fully fund education, invest in renewable energy, put New Yorkers back to work through a WPA style jobs program, cut local property taxes by having the state take over Medicaid costs, enact a Medicare for All type health care program.
Mr. Cuomo is running as the most conservative Democratic candidate for Governor in memory. He has not details on how he plans to solve a $9 billion state budget deficit – a spending freeze and a cap on property taxes still leaves a massive deficit. He ignore the fact that 800,000 plus New Yorkers are out of work. And he ignores the fact that we are in a massive recession, where more – not less – government spending is needed.
Mr. Cuomo is running on a Republican economic agenda and a liberal social agenda. THe media should inform voters where all the candidates stand.
Hawkins has a much chance of winning as Paladino. But with enough votes, the Green Party could be an effective alternative voice post election to Mr. Cuomo.
I visited Howie’s website this morning and was a bit intrigued. I’m looking for a candidate to support in the gubernatorial election. I’m not a Palidino supporter and have decided not to vote for Cuomo due to his stance on medical marijuana (among other things).
The thing is, no matter how much revenue we try and raise, I still think there needs to be attention given to cutting wasteful spending across the state. This includes redundant programs; local, county and state government consolidation; cuts to our prison system (possibly by reforming our marijuana prohibition laws), etc…I didn’t see many suggestions from Howie on cutting costs. I think this is as important as raising additional revenue.
The stock transfer tax should be reinstated immediately.
(It’s already being collected by the state but then later rebated back to brokers)
Just for context, a $10,000 stock transfer would be subject to a whopping $5 tax. Despite scaremongering, no one’s going to leave trendy Manhattan for Secaucus, NJ over that.
Free college, take from the rich, tax the bankers and stockbrokers…sounds familiar. So after he gets in and starts his free college and hundreds of thousands of students flood NYs colleges requiring huge amounts of new funding and after the “rich” simply leave NY for less expensive states and after the bankers and stock brokers leave when they have to bear a higher and higher share of the burden- who is left to pay the bill?
Free this, free that. It all has to be paid for somehow. There’s no such thing as “free”.
We all pay sales tax when we buy something we need. The investment bankers and investment firms pay no sales tax when they buy something they want: stocks. It is still a purchase, and there is still tax that should be paid. The only difference is the wealthy have their taxes waived, year after year.
There has been a law in New York for 100 years that the state is to collect a tax on those stock purchases. But the last several years the state of New York has not collected those taxes. Imagine how much different the state budget would be if those investment bankers and investment firms had been payihg the taxes they were supposed to pay. Instead, they gamble, we pay.
Hawkins’s platform is implausible. If a stock transfer, 50% bankers bonus, and 15% income taxes were imposed the exodus of businesses to other states and countries would be so severe that the budget deficit would actually increase not decrease.
I don’t think Paladino’s economic ideas are as fringe as Hawkins’. Paladino’s economic platform is about bringing our taxes, spending, and regulations near the national average. Hawkins is about making us even more of an economic outlier, seeing as being an outlier in taxes, spending, and regulations hasnt helped in the past, I cant see how being even more of an outlier would help.
I’ll tell you what is fringe. The fact that we have a state budget that is larger than California’s, a state with twice our population.
Now social policy, that is a different question. But they arent the main issues facing the state.
I’d like to implement Hawkins’ cessation of rebating the transfer tax first before the bankers’ and increase income taxes. That alone would return an amount to NYS coffers equal to more than double the current budget deficit. That, combined with making Medicaid run by the state (rather than regressive property taxes) as well as rooting out waste in places like IDAs, public authorities and other forms of corporate welfare, would return NYS’ finances toward a sane direction.
And again for context, the tax a broker would pay on a $30,000 stock transfer would be LESS than the sales tax you or I would pay if we bought an iPod. Brokers aren’t going to leave trendy Manhattan for Secaucus, NJ over that.
“after the “rich” simply leave NY for less expensive states…”
According to the rhetoric we’ve been hearing, all the rich have ALREADY left NYS.
They are not all bad ideas.
I think this guy actually has ideas that are better than Cuomo who is running on the I am not Palidino platform.
Even if the investment bankers and firms leave New York in an attempt to continue to escape their taxes, they will still want to buy stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. So their purchases would still be taxed. I don’t think they will move out of New York, and I don’t think they will change the New York Stock Exchange to being instead the New Jersey Stock Exchange.
It is time they start paying their fair share. Howie Hawkins knows what he is talking about.
Ever hear of the Chicago or London stock exchanges?
I would like to add one thing to my prior post. While I don’t think Paladino’s economic proposals are fringe, I think the speed with which he intends to implement them is. Bringing NY medicaid costs down to California’s would take years to implement, for example.
The issue is that state spending must be reduced before any additional taxes are added to the already excessive burden.
Let me first point out that Hawkins is a serious person with serious ideas that deserve some consideration. Add to that he is from Syracuse; he’s a working man who loads trucks for a living and he’s a Teamster Union member who is asking for rank and file working people to support him–in spite of the fact that the union Bosses have come out for Cuomo.
Howie’s platform is not JUST about the stock transfer tax. He wants to remove the burden of Medicaid payments from county government which would allow a reduction in property tax, he wants to create a WPA type program to put people to work and part of that program would be in developing alternative energy in order to become a leader in renewable energy–a field that will produce many jobs in the future.
But the most important thing Howie Hawkins wants is for 200,000 people to vote for him. That would likely get the Green Party the third slot on the ballot in future elections. That would mean that the media would have to take Green candidates more seriously and the voters would get to hear other ideas than the narrow range of thought the 2 major parties are committed to.
Paladino wont win. Cuomo doesn’t need your vote. A vote for Howie (or for Redlich) is not a throw-away vote. It is a vote for better, more serious future elections and media coverage of them.
Steve, no, we don’t all pay sales taxes when we buy something we need. Anything associated with my business I buy under the sales tax exemption, all businesses are the same. Same goes for public services like schools, colleges, utilities, churches, many non-profits, etc. I don’t believe there’s sales tax on certain foods and clothing. And of course, none of us pay sales tax for our drugs, stolen computers, illegal alien slaves, whoops, workers, etc. So there’s already a lot of people not paying sales tax. I don’t know if the brokers we’re talking about here are middlemen or the actual purchasers of the stocks. If the purchasers of the stocks are outside the state, isn’t that like a mail order purchase where state sales tax isn’t paid? I don’t know, I’m just asking. I just have to wonder if it’s such a small price as Brian says, where all this money is going to come from.
Brian, where does the money come from to run medicaid? How is that different from basing it at the county level? Have “the State” fund it will just result in more taxation at the state level, more employees at the state level, less local control. Please, if I’m missing something let me know, but I don’t see how switching the guy paying will lower costs. Believe me, I’d love to see my property taxes fall!
BTW- the rhetoric isn’t that the rich have all left NY, it’s that our taxes turn the rich into poor!
Bret, I hope you’re being careful in your business. With the warning that I am not an accountant or tax lawyer, the end user is supposed to pay sales tax in most cases unless it is a tax exempt organization or purchases of food. If you are buying items that are for resale or are an integral part of what you’re selling they are tax exempt to you but tax will be paid by the buyer in most cases. If you are buying something like tooling or machinery you are the end user and you pay tax. Contractors are a little different in that they pay tax on all their materials.
And then there are autos which get taxed every single time they are sold, in theory anyway.
About funding Medicaid at the state level and not through property tax go back and re-read the story: transfer tax, progressive income tax, bankers bonus tax.
And the rich are doing just fine. It is the middle class that is losing out.
Knuck, I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. Okay, so we get the transfer tax, put the blocks to the bankers ( whatever a “bonus tax” is) and apparently tax people at a higher rate )just how progressive are we gonna get?) I still don’t see any way that’s going to pay for Medicaid AND balance the deficit AND allowed continued spending at “normal” levels. There needs to be some major cuts some place.
There is just incredible wealth generated in NYC. We are not talking about some doctor or lawyer who pulls down 300-500K per year or the administration at SLU, who make about that amount. No ware talking about men and women who pull down hundreds of millions of dollars per year, year in and year out.
Being more progressive in a number of ways with our tax system to tax those super rich who are making that sort of money; is not a bad idea.
You can’t kill the golden goose, but at the same time come on these guys have so much they are beyond just regular rich.
I agree with progressive taxation, but the legislature has already raised taxes on the rich. And most states tax the rich less than we do. You cant tax the rich more than most other states and then be surprised when some of them leave for states with no or very low income taxes.
I just think NYC/Wall Street is unique in the US in the amount of massive income it generates for a relatively small group of people.
The general tax rates in NYS should be lowered in my opinion. The combination of very high property taxes, relatively high income taxes, and high sales taxes, combined with an over-regulated economy are killing new growth statewide.
However NYC is doing fine, the taxes in the City are not hurting their growth because they are not relatively high when compared to other world financial capitals. NYC competes with London, Paris, Tokyo as a world financial hub.
Well said, Mervel. Though I do believe that, this year anyway,
“the I am not Palidino platform” is more appealing than the “I am Palidino” platform.