Dan Cantor wants to emphasize that while media reports (including mine) have emphasized the tax increase included in the Working Families Party economic agenda, there is a bigger picture.
An increase in personal income taxes is levied against those who earn more than $250,000, but it is part of an effort to lower taxes for a greater number of New Yorkers, Cantor, the WFP’s executive director, said.
The plan is “as much about cutting taxes as raising taxes,” he told me today. “If you actually read our thing, it was about a massive expansion of property tax relief for middle-class and working-class people. Unlike Republicans, we’re not doing it in an irresponsible way.”
Cantor said “Pataki-era tax cuts” shifted the tax burden from the state to local counties and cities.
“What needs to happen, you need to shift the burden onto those most able to afford it, who got most of the benefit [of those cuts], and cut people’s property taxes. So our proposal is much more about reducing taxes on working families and paying for it in a responsible way by asking the very top, the 1 or 2 or 3 percent, to pay a little bit more.”
As for the opposition Cantor is facing, he said, “We think the governor is wrong and overly stubborn on this and, you know, we’re confident that at the end of the day that he knows that this is the fair thing to do.”
He explained, “If you understand it in its totality, that is to say, you’re providing genuine tax relief to millions of people by asking thousands, who have really benefited from tax cuts, to pay their fair share.”
