Republicans To Call For Gas-Tax Relief
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- April
- 29
Republicans in the state Assembly and Senate are calling for a repeal of the state’s gas taxes this summer in the wake of soaring gas prices.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County, has a news conference scheduled for tomorrow morning and Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, has an announcement scheduled for the afternoon.
Republicans want to suspend a 32.75 cents tax imposed in New York. Yet some leaders have questioned the effectiveness of gas-tax caps or suspensions, saying there is no guarantee that oil companies will pass on the savings to consumers.
That’s been Gov. David Paterson’s opinion in recent days, and Democrats say a gas-tax suspension in the summer months—when about 40 percent of the state’s sales-tax revenue from gas is collected because of the busy travel season—would cost the state up to $800 million in lost revenue.
That would be a tough hit when lawmakers are warning of tough fiscal time ahead. But supporters say the measure is needed to give New Yorkers relief at the pump.
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on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pm by Joseph Spector.
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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. 
