After repeatedly bashing the ineptitude of Albany on the campaign trail, Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo yesterday finally admitted there was one thing state government has a talent for — taxing the wealthy.
“We have no problem telling rich people they have to pay taxes. We do it extraordinarily well. We do it better than almost any state in the nation,” Cuomo said at Gov. Paterson’s East Side offices after their first face-to-face meeting since the election.
“At what point do the rich people say, ‘I’m moving’? That’s the question.”
Cuomo predicted the state’s prospects will be bleak if Albany continued slapping taxes on residents to pay the bills.
He argued that Albany’s penchant for tariffs is not helping the state retain human capital.
“You have no great economic future if you’re the highest-taxed state in the nation, period. And you can’t dance around that,” he said.
“If you want to attract businesses, you want to keep people, you want to grow businesses here, you have to offer an environment for business that is palatable, and if you keep raising taxes and over regulating, we’ll be alone here.”
Cuomo met with his former rival Paterson to discuss personnel changes and the budget deficit.
Paterson opened their joint press conference by recalling a water gun fight that he and Cuomo had several years earlier in the Adirondacks. In a prior telling, Cuomo claimed he got the best of Paterson.
Yesterday, an apparently humbled Cuomo said, “David won the water gun fight.”