WASHINGTON – Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday that he won’t back Mayor de Blasio’s crusade to slap higher taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.
Schumer, a leader of the Democrats’ push to raise federal income taxes on the rich, said that he didn’t want to get involved in a fight between fellow Democrats de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the tax plan.
“I’m leaving it up to de Blasio and Cuomo to work that one out. I have enough trouble at the federal level,” Schumer (D-NY) said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I’ve supported an increase in taxes at the federal level, from 35 percent to 39 percent,” he said. “It’s a more difficult issue at the state level, because people can leave and go to Connecticut or New Jersey or somewhere else. So I’ve left that to them.”
De Blasio, the first Democrat in 20 years to run New York City, wants to fund citywide prekindergarten education by raising taxes on residents who earn more than $500,000 a year.
The tax scheme needs state approval and faces election-year opposition from Cuomo, as well as Republicans in Albany.
The de Blasio tax hike is estimated to cost the average rich New Yorker about $975 a year and rake in an extra $530 million for city government over a five-year period.