NY State of Politics: October 30, 2018

By Nick Reisman

Green Party candidate for governor Howie Hawkins on Tuesday released an upstate-centric tax proposal that would repeal the limit local property tax increases.

The tax cap, instead, would be replaced with restoring state revenue sharing with local governments.

“Upstate New York suffers from the highest property taxes in the country and the Governor’s tax cap has been just a sound-bite gimmick that has done nothing to lower them,” Hawkins said in a statement. “The state government has a much broader base than the sales and property tax to finance government operations. Restoring revenue sharing would offset the cost of unfunded mandates and enable local governments to reduce local taxes while making needed investments in services and infrastructure.”

The proposal was unveiled with Mark Dunlea, the Green Party’s candidate for state comptroller, who has been pushing for a divestment of the state pension fund from fossil fuel interests.

“The state comptroller has failed to take the easy step of protecting our health and tax dollars by divesting the state pension fund from the $6 to $11 billion. It has invested in fossil fuels,” Dunlea said. “We need to go much further, immediately halting all new fossil fuel infrastructure and moving to 100% clean energy by 2030, including enacting a state carbon tax to make polluters pay for the damage they have caused.”