Albany Watch

A coalition of groups, including the state teachers union and the labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute, presented proposals Monday they say would generate revenue and cut costs for the state amid a difficult economic climate, Gannett’s Jon Campbell reports.

A temporary higher income-tax bracket for people making more than $1 million, a partial repeal of a tax rebate on stock transactions and a tax on plastic bags are among 28 actions that could help close the state’s $8.2 billion budget gap for the 2010-11 fiscal year, members of the Better Choice Budget Campaign said.

Other members of the coalition include New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Empire Justice Center and Environmental Advocates of New York.

The group offered the suggestions in place of a number of proposals in Gov. David Paterson’s proposed state budget. Paterson has proposed a $1.1 billion cut to school aid and a $1 billion cut to health care.

Ron Deutsch, executive director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, said the state must rely on “surgical cuts” rather than across-the-board cuts.

“We believe there are better choices to be made,” Deutsch said. “We think (our suggestions) would have a much less damaging impact on the economy and raise much of the needed revenues that would prevent many of these cuts in services to vital state programs from being enacted.”

Cuts to school aid and higher education “will wash away potentially all of the jobs saved by the federal stimulus money received last year,” said Steve Allinger, director of legislation for New York State United Teachers.

Matt Anderson, spokesman for Paterson’s budget office, said the group’s plan doesn’t fall in line with Paterson’s pledge to reduce governmental spending.

“The governor said from his first day in office that our primary focus should be on reducing spending, and there don’t appear to be any proposals (from the coalition) that address the rising costs in the two largest areas of the budget, which is education and health care,” said Matt Anderson, spokesman for Paterson’s budget office.

You can review their proposals here.

Last year, Paterson and lawmakers approved a spending plan that included more than $7 billion in new taxes and fees, including higher income taxes on the wealthy, to close a roughly $18 billion budget gap.

The coalition estimated that the state could generate $1 billion by levying an additional one-percent tax in 2010 and 2011 on those making more than $1 million a year. The group also believes the state could make $3.2 billion by reducing a tax rebate on stock transactions from 100 percent to 80 percent and at least $100 million by taxing natural-gas extractions from the Marcellus Shale in the Southern Tier.

Other actions recommended by the coalition include enacting Paterson’s proposed tax on sugary beverages and cigarettes, as well as collecting taxes on cigarettes sold on Native-American reservations to non-Native Americans. The group also propsed placing a five-cent tax on plastic bags and reforming the state’s clean-up program for polluted industrial sites. The state has been unsuccessful for years in collecting taxes on Native-American reservations.

E.J. McMahon, executive director of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy, said the suggestions are labor-driven, saying they show the “increasing desperation of these unions.”

“This is a prescription for economic and fiscal suicide,” McMahon said.

“A $3.2 billion tax on stock transactions is a great way of insuring that stock transactions occur someplace else. Basically, they are calling on completely depleting the state’s remaining cash cushion rather than doing anything to balance the budget this year.”

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