ZERO GROWTH TAX CUT
I’ll bet you didn’t know that some New Yorkers are getting a tax cut, which was actually passed a year ago. But it’s not like the economy super-charging tax cuts passed by the Republican Congress and signed into law by President Trump. Upstate New York’s decades-long trend of out-migration (first in the nation) won’t change. The upstate economy will not reverse its decades-long decline. The budget for 2017 included the biggest (delayed) personal income tax cut since the 1990’s, which should be a cause for celebration, but sadly isn’t. Tax cuts are supposed to unleash buoyant optimism, what economists call Animal Spirits, the breath that awakens the human mind to limitless potential and possibility. New Yorkers aren’t talking about these tax cuts because the cuts are puny, and they take seven years fully phase in. Those who designed the cuts in this way are economic illiterates.
Here are the details. If you make between $42,750 and $321,050 your taxes will decrease a tiny fraction – .12% per year from 2018 to 2025, where the tax rate finally lands at 5.5%. But only if your income falls in that range. No other brackets see a cut. The least affluent and the most affluent New Yorkers remain strangled by the highest taxes in the nation. With their earned money captured by the rapacious New York State government, they have less to invest, save and spend as they see fit.
Freedom is a finite thing: either you have it or you don’t. When it comes to your money, New York State is in charge. When your money is controlled by the government, it will not generate growth, prosperity and jobs. After all, who is best able to decide how, what and where to spend your money, a distant government bureaucrat in Albany or you yourself? I’ll go with you every time.
Michael A. Morrongiello, Ph. D.
