Molinaro: NY is Not America’s Piggy Bank

POUGHKEEPSIE – New York is a high tax, anti-business, anti-growth state and Governor Cuomo needs to take responsibility for this unfortunate distinction.  Sadly, he seems oblivious to the state of affairs evidenced by his cynical efforts to give away even more tax payer dollars hobnobbing in Harvey Weinstein’s Hollywood.

But equally as cynical are the efforts by Republicans in Washington to finance tax cuts for constituents in red states by taxing middle class citizens in blue states like New York. Republican leaders in Washington indignantly claim the rest of the nation shouldn’t be footing the bill for New York’s high taxes – they are wrong, because they are not and they never have.

The fact is red states have been feeding at the trough of New York’s taxpayers for over four decades. In 1976, New York’s late great Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan launched an annual report, nicknamed “The Fisc,” which tracked the of funds between the federal government and the states and highlighted New York’s “balance of payments deficit.”

Moynihan’s report found that New York taxpayers have generated billions more dollars for the U.S. Treasury than our state receives back in federal aid. Since then analysis after analysis, from the State Comptroller in 2013 to the Rockefeller Institute in 2015 have demonstrated that New Yorkers have been getting the short end of the stick from Washington. In 2015 alone, New York sent nearly $48 billion more dollars to Washington then we received from the federal government.

New York is not America’s piggy bank. The elimination of SALT is little more than an exercise in political score settling and a craven choice to avoid tough decisions.  I for one won’t support a tax plan that finances a tax cut for Roy Moore’s Alabama on the back of middle class New Yorkers