Skelos: First Step To Tax Relief Comes Today

Here’s Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos discussion the property tax cap program bill sent to the Legislature by Gov. Andrew Cuomo late last week that the Senate intends to pass today – apparently with bipartisan support.

Click here to read the 74-page bill, which teachers union officials say appears even stronger than what Cuomo discussed last year on the campaign trail. This is the first program bill of Cuomo’s short tenure in office.

Skelos, who revealed at the ABNY breakfast last Friday that his chamber would take up the 2 percent cap this week, said he hasn’t yet discussion this matter with the Assembly Democrats, choosing to leave that to Cuomo.

“We intend to pass the property tax cap bill tomorrow in the Senate, a two percent cap,” said Skelos, who was talking to CapTon’s Mike Whittemore at the CPAC conference in Colonie.

“It’s a program bill of Governor Cuomo. And it’s fulfilling our commitment to the voters that we have to bring property taxes under control. And the state itself has to cut taxes, cut spending and create private sector jobs. The governor gave us the program bill. I assume he’s going to send it over to the speaker also. So, this is the first step.”

Cuomo’s decision to send the Legislature his cap in a program bill apparently caught the Assembly Democrats, who aren’t uniformly supportive of the measure, by surprise.

The governor didn’t give the Democratic majority a heads-up about the bill, which many expected to show up in the executive budget proposal tomorrow. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was observing Shabbat and therefore didn’t see the legislation until sundown Saturday. Silver spokeswoman Sisa Moyo told the Times:

“The speaker stated at the State of the State that the Assembly is committed to passing a property tax cap bill. We look forward to working with the governor and our colleagues in the Senate on this issue in the upcoming budget.”

The Senate twice passed a one-house property tax cap bill when the chamber was under Democratic control, but that was back when it was assured the Assembly Democrats wouldn’t take up the measure, making the vote entirely symbolic. Then-Gov. David Paterson pushed for the Assembly to follow suit, insisting voters had a right to know before the 2010 elections where their legislators stood on the issue, but Silver did not heed that call.

The cap is expected to pass today with all of the 32 Republicans (assuming everyone is present) voting “yes.” It’s unclear how many Democrats will join in, although the four-member Independence Democratic Conference is likely to support the measure, too.

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This entry was posted by Liz Benjamin on January 31, 2011 at 8:38 am, and is filed under Albany, Andrew Cuomo, Assembly, Dean Skelos, Democrats, Republicans, Sheldon Silver, State Senate, Tax Cap, Uncategorized. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Skelosismyboy

Does a cap on growth provide relief? Or is this guy a habitual liar?
gecannonphd

Michael Caputo, Gov. Cuomo and the “death of the liberal class”.
**********
Social/political critic Chris Hedges believes that American liberalism and its’ liberal class is dead. And its’ death has opened the way for absolute international private corporate dominance. He compares our current political crisis to the Weimer period in pre-Hitler Germany. (http://www.amazon.com/Death-Liberal-Class-Chris-Hedges/dp/1568586442).

Gov. Cuomo’s budget,to be made public tomorrow, will likely signal the death of the liberal class in NY State.
The temporay support of the conservatives,like Mike Caputo,the tea partiers, the Conservative Party’s Michael Long, and the Senate GOP all add credence to the death of NY liberalism.

The Gov.’s budget is expected to be draconian, calling for the firing of 10k + state employees, cuts of billions in Medicaid and school aid; and a property tax cap without mandate relief in place. All this will produce a royal battle to to determine what teachers get fired first .

It doesn’t have to be this way.

There have been reasonable proposals that would avoid the layoffs,the hugh cuts in Medicaid and school aid, and the pain that will hit the most vunerable New Yorkers. But they are going to be ignored in the budget.

The $10 billion deficit can be met with reasonable proposals, a mix of revenue enhancers, and savings.
Re revenue, continuing the millionaires’ surtax could produce $2 billion. Keeping a small portion of the already existing stock transfer tax could produce another $2-3 billion. Eliminating just a small percentage of the $30 billion in existing tax credits (expenditures) could produce another $3-5 billion. And a 1cent tax on sugary sodas could produce $400 million in revenue.

The New York Times still has a moderate liberal editorial board, and its’ editorial this morning on the New York budget is a good,moderate, reasonable program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/opinion/31mon1.html?pagewanted=1
Kev390

For the Albany School district, they are seeing 15% increases a year, so yes, this would provide relief.
Smith

Liberalism wasn’t dead in the Great Depression, there just wasn’t much money to spend. Its deja vu all over again it seems.
http://www.4taxhelp.com/ IRS Tax Relief

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Skelos: First Step To Tax Relief Comes Today

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