Chasing wealth away

NY Post ^ | May 12, 2011 | Nicole Gelinas

[Scanian]

This afternoon, the "May 12 Coalition" will take to the streets of Lower Manhattan with a demand for Mayor Bloomberg: "Make Big Banks and Millionaires Pay." But we'd all pay: The coalition's plan centers on a massive tax hike that would send jobs and wealth away from the five boroughs.

The group comprises the usual suspects -- the United Federation of Teachers, the Transport Workers Union, the big health-care unions, the Coalition for the Homeless, etc.

No surprise: People who depend on big government want bigger government. The $49.7 billion that Bloomberg will spend next year -- up 11.2 percent from the year before -- isn't enough. The coalition has catalogued every "devastating" budget cut, from the $515 million the mayor would save by cutting 6,000 teachers to $250,000 off a "homeless prevention fund."

The coalition has a "solution": Sock it to the wealthy. They want a return of the state's temporary "millionaire's tax," which Gov. Cuomo allowed to expire. A year from now, the coalition says, the higher tax rate would bring in $5 billion -- with about $1.9 billion going to the city.

Not so fast. When you tax something, you get less of it -- sometimes so much less that a higher tax rate brings in fewer tax dollars.

Remember 2002, the last time the city and state faced budget crises? The mayor and the state Legislature enacted huge tax hikes, including on cigarettes -- which now give us a neat illustration of how all of this works.

[Scanian]

This "event" is turning into a garden variety lefty whining session.

What happened to Michael Lerner's promise to "take over" JP Morgan Stanley and "crash Wall Street?"

Sounds like the thing got awfully anemic awfully fast.

[mmercier]

It is difficult to force those with means and ability to not leave you for dead when a majority acquiesces to other parties desire to coerce them through state mechanism to pay for that which offends their sensibilities.

[Jacquerie]

So in the land of the once free, the successful must prove they were within/without the boundaries of certain tax districts each and every day.

How will this all end? Will we return to unalienable rights based law, or continue our dive into tyranny?

[Abin Sur]

Specifically, the "millionaire tax" would raise the top state income tax level to 8.97%.

I'm reminded of a bit from a recent John Stossel special of Fox in which he interviewed a multi-millionaire who had recently moved from New York City to Florida (which has no state income tax) in which he said (quoting from memory):

"Why would I want to live in NYC when they charge me ten thousand dollars a day for the 'privilege' of living there?"

[lowbridge]

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[lowbridge]

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