Popular demand sure ain’t what it used to be – at least, not with Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver and their special-interest masters.
Gov. Paterson admitted Monday that he’d given up on his plan to cap school property taxes before the legislative session ends next week – the very same day that a new Siena College poll showed New Yorkers supporting the cap by a whopping five-to-one margin.
The numbers certainly come as no surprise: New Yorkers toil under the highest local tax burden in the country; as the gov has long pointed out, it’s one of the chief reasons the state keeps hemorrhaging residents.
Sort of make you wonder why Paterson caved in so quickly, doesn’t it?
Clearly, his plan resonates. It would limit the yearly growth in school-district levies to 4 percent or 1.2 times inflation, whichever is lower – unless residents explicitly vote to spend more.
That’s serious relief on levies that have jumped an average of 6 percent a year since 1998 – which is why Bruno and Silver want nothing to do with it.
That is, it’s why the teachers’ unions want nothing to do with it – and what the unions want, Silver and Bruno slavishly deliver.
Especially in election years.
(Bruno, of course, would rather not appear pro-tax either, so he’s cloaked his opposition in a completely cynical call to do away with property taxes entirely.)
Still, you’d think the 74 percent of New Yorkers who support the cap could show some muscle, too – if anyone saw fit to rally them.
But that role would have fallen to Gov. Paterson, who bailed out – albeit while holding out the possibility of calling a special session to address the issue before November.
He better.
Property-tax relief is just too important to give up without a fight.