Senate Democrats Are Fighting for Seniors and Home Owners
By Mike Connery on 04/26/2010 @ 11:12 AM
As the Senate prepares to pass another round of budget extenders, this morning's news is dominated by stories describing the Senate Democrats "hard line in the sand" around property tax relief for New Yorkers - particularly our seniors.
Very few of those stories provide context as to why we believe that property tax relief is so important, and why the Senate Democrats are standing firm in this fight. Here's some hard data that should illuminate things.
According to The Tax Foundation, a non partisan group based in Washington D.C., for over 30 years tax rates in New York have been well above the national average. In all but 4 years between 1977 and 2008, New York ranked #1 in the nation as the state with the highest state and local tax burden.
Data from the Tax Foundation also shows that Westchester, Rockland, and Nassau counties have the dubious distinction of being ranked among the top ten counties in the nation with the highest property taxes , with Westchester and Nassau ranked numbers one and three, respectively.
While downstate counties and those on Long Island face the highest property tax rates in the nation, upstate and Western New Yorkers account for 8 of the top 10 counties in median real estate taxes as a percentage of median home value:
These taxes are killing middle class families and seniors who are struggling to make it through the economic downturn. Right now, Senate Democrats are the only elected officials representing the concerns of these New Yorkers in the budget negotiations.
Depsite 44 years in power, Republicans failed to rein in property taxes and provide real relief for New Yorkers. As of today, Republicans have yet to submit any ideas on how to fix the budget. Instead, they prefer sitting on the sidelines, rooting for Democrats to fail so they can make political hay in the Fall. All of this should be noted in any story reporting on the current budget negotiations. Anything less fails to provide readers with a full picture of the current budget debate.
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