ALBANY – Gov. Spitzer and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, in a rare alliance against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, yesterday rejected plans to raise income taxes for the wealthy by up to $5 billion.
Spitzer, like Silver a Democrat, repeated an earlier pledge not to raise taxes, saying, “That is something that we cannot afford to do.”
He also insisted he’s committed to improving the state’s business climate.
As a result, “To now turn around and raise taxes would be a mistake,” he said.
Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican whose control of the Senate was whittled down to just one vote in a special election last week, reiterated his own anti-tax pledge, declaring, “We’re saying not one penny more in new taxes.
“We’re not going to do a personal-income-tax hike.
“I don’t think much of the idea of raising taxes when you’re in a state where you’ve had an exodus of a million people over the last 10 or 12 years; when we’ve lost 15 congressional people in the last 50 years; and we’re going to lose two more,” he noted.
Silver (D-Manhattan) and many of the Assembly’s most liberal members, under pressure from the left-of-center Working Families Party, are considering a plan to raise $5 billion to fund health, education and transportation programs by hiking income taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year.
Spitzer spokesman Dan Wiler said the Assembly’s proposed new state budget, to be made public next week, would include a “temporary” five-year surcharge on those making $1 million or more annually, to raise $1.5 billion a year.
Wiler said the Assembly plan could include other tax hikes on the wealthy, but added he did not have the details.
Tax-hike supporters, citing declining state revenues and increasing local property taxes, contend that taxing the wealthy is the only way to fully fund vital programs and grant tax relief to hard-pressed suburban and upstate homeowners.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday claimed Spitzer is shortchanging the city by $747 million in the proposed state budget, a figure Spitzer’s budget director disputed.
“You want to make this a personal thing,” Bloomberg told reporters who asked about the dispute.
“It has nothing to do with personalities . . . The governor’s trying to accommodate us, but he’s got other responsibilities.”
One insider said Bloomberg would be wise to avoid a public fight with the governor since he’ll need Spitzer’s help to push the city’s agenda in Albany, including extending mayoral control of the school system.
But the mayor wasn’t about to let his budget director, Mark Page, get slapped by Spitzer’s budget chief, Laura Anglin.
She had charged that Page’s testimony before the City Council Tuesday was “inaccurate and highly misleading.”
“Mark Page is probably as honest, as smart a person as this city could possibly employ,” said the mayor. “He is a dedicated public servant who I stand behind.”
Additional reporting by David Seifman