New York Re-Arranges The Deck Chairs

The state with the possibly the highest tax and regulatory burden in the country is going to make itself even more uncompetitive with a typically statist tax and spending plan:

"Movie tickets, taxi rides, soda, beer, wine, cigars and massages would be taxed under Paterson's proposal. It also extends sales taxes to cable and satellite TV services and removes the tax exemption for clothes costing less than $110."

This is how New York and other socialist states have always solved the fiscal disasters they create. More of the same policies that caused the problems in the first place.

As before, none of these taxes and fees will bring in anywhere near the revenue projected as New Yorkers will be turned into criminals when they avoid (evade?) these taxes by taking their commerce elsewhere. One just has to look at New York's thriving black market in cigarettes resulting from the highest taxes in the country on that legal product.

Ultimately, the New York government will chase even more of its most productive citizens from the state as it kicks the can down the road without reforming a government run by those who sit in the cart rather than pull it.

The New York Post knows all too well that this is more of the same:

"So he proposed a $121 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts April 1, ostensibly to close an estimated $15.4 billion revenue-spending gap through March 2010. Not good enough. Yes, the budget calls for relatively modest cuts in big-ticket items. But it "restructures" virtually nothing. It actually increases spending, by some $1.3 billion. And it seeks to impose tax and fee hikes in excess of $4 billion - larger than any New York governor has ever sought before. Can you say "business as usual"?"

For example, we're told without context that there will be a 3.3%, or $698 million, reduction in school aid. But as The Post points out: " ...the governor's proposed 3.3 percent dip in school aid will still leave districts with $6.2 billion - up fully 42 percent since '04."

Furthermore: "Now, as always, the Legislature is certain to bloat Paterson's modest economies beyond recognition.
He knows that - everybody knows it."

In other words, nothing has changed and when New York falls further in the hole, they along with California, Michigan and other irresponsible states will be asking the rest of the country to be bail them out.

The problem is that the Obamunists are proposing exactly the same type of government policies that have doomed New York. Now we'll have people and capital fleeing across the oceans rather than just down I95.