{"id":7630,"date":"2021-01-13T18:07:51","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T18:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=149707"},"modified":"2021-01-13T18:07:51","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T18:07:51","slug":"enough-is-enough-how-a-new-york-coalition-is-pushing-lawmakers-to-raise-the-states-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/13\/enough-is-enough-how-a-new-york-coalition-is-pushing-lawmakers-to-raise-the-states-revenue\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Enough Is Enough\u2019: How a New York Coalition Is Pushing Lawmakers to Raise the State\u2019s Revenue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New York needs cash, and the state\u2019s progressives say they know where to find it.<\/p>\n

On January 6, many of the major progressive organizations in New York City, including the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, and Make the Road New York launched the Invest in Our New York campaign<\/a>, a coalition of more than 100 groups that aims to persuade lawmakers to pass laws raising $50 billion in new revenue in 2021.<\/p>\n

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\u2018We need investment in our communities in real time, sustainable long term investment that actually funds the public good.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This money is needed, they say, because of the hit to the state\u2019s finances caused by the COVID-19-induced recession. New York State faces an estimated $60 billion shortfall<\/a> over the next four years. <\/p>\n

The effects of lost revenue are already being felt. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo\u2014who, through recently enacted COVID-19 emergency powers<\/a>, possesses near-unilateral control over the allocation of state funds\u2014has drastically cut funding to programs including Medicaid<\/a>, addiction treatment<\/a>, and higher education<\/a>. He\u2019s threatened further cuts<\/a> to health care, schools, and local governments unless Congress passes legislation to make up for lost revenues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the governor has been handling the economic situation in the state is to cut budgets, and that impacts working class, middle class, poor and Black and brown New Yorkers the most,\u201d Rebecca Bailin, the campaign manager of Invest in Our New York<\/a>, tells The Progressive<\/em>. \u201cAnd all of the main base-building and progressive organizations in New York have finally come together to say \u2018enough is enough.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign\u2019s report<\/a> calls for the $50 billion to be raised through a combination of new taxes on income, wealth, stock trades, and corporations. Notably, the report doesn\u2019t say what the new revenues should be used for specifically.<\/p>\n

Sochie Nnaemeka, director of the New York Working Families Party<\/a>, tells The Progressive<\/em> that this was done to keep the coalition as broad as possible.<\/p>\n

The new revenue \u201cshould go to a whole host of things,\u201d Nnaemeka says, \u201cbut we\u2019re coming as a united front, not pitting education against transit against climate, but saying, \u2018We need investment in our communities in real time, sustainable long term investment that actually funds the public good.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Many lawmakers from around the state have already announced their support of the campaign, with legislators from both New York City<\/a> and upstate<\/a> pledging to fight for the Invest in Our New York agenda<\/a> in the 2021 legislative session. <\/p>\n

But for legislators who haven\u2019t yet jumped on the wagon, the campaign is counting on a mass mobilization of New Yorkers to reach out to their representatives and convince them to support the cause.<\/p>\n

Make the Road New York<\/a>, Housing Justice for All<\/a>, and the Democratic Socialists of America<\/a> have already called tens of thousands of New Yorkers to tell them about the campaign and urge them to ask their representatives to support it. They plan to escalate that outreach in the coming months. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want more and more New Yorkers to have a strong politicized relationship to the budgeting process than currently do,\u201d says Jack Gross, an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n

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Organizers say that in addition to changing the minds of recalcitrant legislators, mobilizing constituents as well will motivate fence-sitting legislators to support the Invest in Our New York agenda<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some people who are going to feel the heat on this, but there are some people that are going to be thankful and are going to see an opportunity to buck legislative leadership, and buck the governor,\u201d says Michael Whitesides, an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to take a bold stance when you have the numbers to back up [saying] \u2018My constituents are calling for this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

While winning won\u2019t be easy, the coalition\u2019s work will be aided by the historic number<\/a> of progressives and socialists elected to the New York State Legislature in 2020. <\/p>\n

Newly sworn in State Senator Jabari Brisport, Democrat of Brooklyn, who was endorsed<\/a> by the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, plans to make an aggressive push for the campaign\u2019s agenda. Over the next few months, he tells The Progressive<\/em>, he plans on \u201cpushing back against tax proposals that I think are too weak and don\u2019t raise enough revenue for what we actually need in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brisport ran on a progressive platform that included universal health care for New York and greater investment in affordable housing, but says that this year, everything else will have to take a back seat. \u201cThis ended up superseding everything I ran on, because the policies I was fighting for need to be funded, and it\u2019s not going to happen unless we drastically increase revenue,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Would the coalition settle for half the pie? When asked if compromise is on the table, Bailin sounds a defiant note. \u201cThe need is so great,\u201d she says \u201cWe will keep fighting until we win. And the sources [of funding] must be progressive.\u201d <\/p>\n

Of course, New York can only tax individuals who live in the state. What if the rich pack up and leave? Would these new taxes trigger a round of capital flight<\/a>, with New York\u2019s wealthy decamping for low-taxation states like Florida?<\/p>\n

Governor Cuomo thinks so, saying<\/a> last summer that if the state passes new taxes on the wealthy, \u201cthey\u2019ll just move next door where the tax treatment is simpler.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Invest in Our New York<\/a> members reject that claim. \u201cBillionaire tax flight is a long standing rightwing myth that does not have any empirical evidence,\u201d Nnaemeka says.<\/p>\n

Cristobal Young, a Cornell sociologist who studies the migration habits of the wealthy, agrees. \u201cMillionaire tax flight is a small fraction of a small fraction. It is essentially irrelevant to tax policy considerations,\u201d Young tells The Progressive<\/em> in an email.<\/p>\n

Rather than the wealthy fleeing, Nnaemeka says that the real issue is that austerity and cuts to social programs are making New York City financially unlivable for the middle and working classes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWorking people are going to Pennsylvania or Florida or the Poconos<\/a>, going to places where they have a greater shot at making it through this pandemic,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have to decide, as a state, do we want to prioritize empty apartments in skyscrapers, or do we want to invest in those who are taking care of us in this moment?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York needs cash, and the state\u2019s progressives say they know where to find it. On January 6, many of the major progressive organizations in New York City,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":685,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/685"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7631,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630\/revisions\/7631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}