Budget debate takes to the airwaves
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- March
- 28
Getting in the first blow was a group called “Better Choice for New York,’’ a coalition of labor, non-profit and faith-based groups that favors raising taxes on millionaires to close the budget gap.
“Special interests must come second to the interests of New York citizens,’’ an announcer intones on its plug, which ha been running most of this week.
In response the state Business Council has launched a campaign urging spending cuts rather than tax hikes.
“Tough fiscal times call for tough budget choices, right?” the radio ad begins. “Well, not here in New York. While states like New Jersey and Florida are biting the bullet with budgets that keep spending in line with falling revenues, New York thinks it can tax and spend its way out of a $4.6 billion deficit. It can’t.’’
The “millionaire-tax’’ idea looks all but dead at this point, but other tax hikes are being considered as the state nears the April 1 deadline for adopting a budget.
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on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 3:24 pm by Jay Gallagher.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
