EDITORIAL: Start cutting state taxes

Staff Reports
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal

LOCKPORT July 06, 2008 12:16 am

— The signs from Albany that the leadership is finally getting a clue about New York’s stifling property taxes continues to be encouraging.
Gov. David Paterson has been criss-crossing the state, championing the concept of a property tax cap. While we’ve said limiting tax increases is not a substitute for actually cutting them, at least it’s an acknowledgment that there’s a problem out there.
Now, the governor is getting together with the newly named leader of the state Senate to push for some sort of property tax reform.
Paterson and new Senate Republican Majority Leader Dean Skelos of Long Island promised last week to work together to craft property tax relief for New Yorkers.
Skelos said both are committed to finding a solution, hopefully within a month, and it could include a tax cap.
Paterson says it could include some alternative to a cap. He says they don’t want to see unions or schools suffer as a consequence, and if they can reach a point where “valid negotiations” are possible, he’ll ask Skelos, Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and other lawmakers to return to Albany to address the issue.
Both say it’s a top concern across New York.
Skelos is smart, at least on this issue. His part of the state, Long Island, suffers from an even higher property tax burden than Western New York. So reform is a winning issue for him politically. He can also point to the corrosive effect high taxes have on the economy statewide; so being for reform also polishes his status as a statewide leader.
What we want to see is tax cutting — not just limiting the rate of increase. Property taxes, and all other taxes for that matter, need to go down; drastically and right away. Taxes are killing New York state. There’s just no other way to put it.
The governor continues to demand real spending cuts from state government. That’s a huge reversal of attitude in Albany. That kind of thinking needs to continue if New York will ever climb out of the economic hole it has dug for itself over the last half century.