Syracuse, NY – New York state can cut local property taxes if the state takes over paying the local share of Medicaid and makes four other reforms, the Green Party candidate for governor said this morning. The five-point property tax-cutting platform laid out by Howie Hawkins also included: • Enacting a single-payer healthcare system in the state • Obeying...
Howie Hawkins.Syracuse, NY – New York state can cut local property taxes if the state takes over paying the local share of Medicaid and makes four other reforms, the Green Party candidate for governor said this morning.
The five-point property tax-cutting platform laid out by Howie Hawkins also included:
• Enacting a single-payer healthcare system in the state
• Obeying a law that he said calls for the state to share 8 percent of its revenues with localities, not the 2 percent now shared
• Increasing state spending on schools
• Ending income tax breaks he said benefit the rich.
“The major difference between me and the major parties is they are protecting the tax cuts for the rich and they want the working people and the general public that use public services to pay for the deficit,” Hawkins said.
“I think that’s totally unnecessary and a recipe for dead-end depression, because where the economy is right now, we need to increase public spending to get business investment and consumer demand up,” he said.
Enacting his program would cut combined state and local taxes for the 95 percent of New Yorkers who earn less than $200,000, Hawkins said.
The New York Association of Counties shares his view that the state should take over the local Medicaid burden, typically the biggest expense of county governments, he said.
“My plan is in the mainstream of New York politics and the plans of Democrat Andrew Cuomo to cap property taxes, or Republican Carl Paladino, to have a mandatory cut in property taxes, is out of the mainstream,” Hawkins said. Local leaders around the state have told him they fear caps or cuts would force funding cuts for schools, police and other services, he said.
Starting a publicly financed single-payer health care system would be the best way for the state to take over Medicaid, he said. Such a system would cut out high administrative costs and executive salaries, duplicative services and the profit-oriented pricing generated by private insurers, he said.
Income tax reforms such as ending the rebate of stock transfer taxes, reverting to the state income tax structure of the 1970s and imposing a 50 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses would raise $34 billion more for the state, Hawkins said.
He rejected the notion that they would drive the finance industry out of New York City, saying the nation’s money people need to stay where its financial business is done.