Anti-poverty group says tax the rich
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- August
- 18
  Heather Senison in the Albany bureau reports that an anti-poverty group wants to boost income taxes for the wealthy, limit property taxes based on ability to pay:
  On the eve of the Assembly’s special session, the Hunger Action Network today announced a campaign to get legislators to sign a petition to end poverty by 2009.
  “Poverty is seldom discussed in the state Capitol, and is generally treated as an insolvable problem. It is time for lawmakers to not only make ending poverty a state priority but to be held accountable for their success in doing so,†said Mark Dunlea of the Hunger Action Network.
  The petition aims to increase the income tax for the state’s wealthiest and to implement a property tax circuit breaker, including for renters, meaning taxes would be in line with people’s ability to pay.
  “New York has a particularly unfair system of state and local taxes, where the poor pay more as a percent of their income than the wealthy,†Dunlea said. “The state budgetary needs should be met through tax fairness that restores the principle that those who can most afford it bear a greater share of the burden.â€
  The petition also asks the Legislature to raise the minimum wage to $10 by 2010, and to devote more money to affordable housing initiatives, beginning with $13 billion over the next 10 years to create about 220,000 affordable housing units.
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on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm by Cara Matthews.
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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. 
