APOLITICALLY impotent Gov. Paterson has told a secret
meeting of worried business leaders that there’s nothing he
can do about Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s plan to hike income taxes on the wealthy.
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“He told them to call Shelly about the taxes, that that’s what they should do,” a participant at the secret gathering -held just over a week ago at the Manhattan home of real-estate mogul Jerry Speyer, CEO of Tishman Speyer – told The Post.
“He said he doesn’t want the tax hike, he’s not pushing for the tax hike, so he said it’s important that they call Silver,” the source continued.
Another source said, “People were flabbergasted by the governor’s comments. He seemed to be saying he wasn’t in charge. He seemed weak.
“It was a disaster.”
The civic-minded business leaders expressed concern that the “millionaires’ tax” being considered by Silver’s Assembly Democrats would worsen the city’s rapidly deteriorating economic climate.
They also drew comparisons to the city and state fiscal crisis of 1975-76 and, as the business community did back then, offered to pitch in to help.
Whether Paterson will take them up on their offer remained unclear, sources said.
Among about a dozen people at the gathering were Speyer, fellow realestate mogul Bill Rudin, former Time Warner CEO and newly named Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons, public-relations guru Howard Rubenstein and powerhouse lawyer Martin Lipton.
The meeting was held amid a growing clamor from public-sector unions and their ally, the Working Families Party, for tax hikes on the wealthy – usually defined as those earning over $1 million annually – to avoid significant cuts in health care and education spending contained in Paterson’s proposed new state budget.
It also came at a time of growing doubts in the Legislature about the ability of Paterson, who took over from Eliot Spitzer nearly 11 months ago, to lead the state.
Recent public opinion polls have shown Paterson’s job-approval rating dropping sharply after what even Paterson conceded was the botched search for Hillary Clinton’s Senate replacement, as well as in the wake of his unpopular plan to tax naturally sweet soft drinks, Internet downloads, and other services to close a massive budget deficit.
While Silver said late last year that he was against hiking taxes on the wealthy because of the loss of tens of thousands of jobs on Wall Street, which is in his district, he changed his position after enormous pressure from his fellow Democratic assemblymen, most of whose campaign cash comes from public-employee unions.
Paterson would be able veto any tax hike approved by the Legislature but lawmakers, under enormous union pressure, could easily override that action.