April 1st is not just for fools. It's also the day the New York State budget is due.
The state budget is likely to be late because of the Governor's decision to force a choice between health care and education.
We shouldn't have to choose between these two top priorities. 44,000 New York taxpayers have yearly incomes over $1 million - that's over $20,000 a week. Instead of fighting over a shrinking pool of resources, the wealthiest among us must pay their fair share in taxes.
Here's our idea: One day's pay for every half-million.
For every $500,000 you earn, you pay one day's pay in taxes (about 0.4 percent of your income). Make $1 million, that's two days pay. Lucky enough to make $2.5 million per year? That's five days' pay, or a week's salary. And you still have another 51 weeks at $50,000 per week to get that $2.5 million. We can cap the number of days when we get to $10 million.
This proposal would let us reduce property taxes for working families, increase school funding, and provide everyone - no exceptions! - with health care.
Help put this idea in the papers by writing a Letter to the Editor on the state budget.
And be sure to let us know if your Letter to the Editor gets published.
Technorati tags: Working Families Party, Income Inequality
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1 comment:
I would like to add that the currently proposed state budget submitted by the Governor is limited in funding for housing in general and no mention for public housing in New York specifically. What good will it do to have improved health care access if people have no place to live? It is time for thinking members of society to ask themselves, "When a person's salary does not cover the cost of living and that same person has to turn to subsidized housing, food stamps, etc. in order to live a decent life, who is really being subsidized, the person who needs help or is it the person(s) who are not compensating their labor with wages to cover all of their costs?"
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