Leaders, Paterson Reach Some Accords
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- June
- 23
Legislative leaders and Gov. David Paterson agreed Monday to reform the New York’s laws on cleaning up polluted, former industrial sites, but failed to offer relief to the high taxes crippling property taxpayers.
The changes to the state’s brownfield program highlighted a package of nine measures that leaders agreed to late Monday. Others included the approval of a video-lottery-terminal facility in the Catskills, new gun regulations, patient safety improvements and tighter laws on parolees.
Yet with lawmakers scheduled to leave the Capitol for the summer this week, agreements on pocketbook issues were unresolved.
Paterson was unable to get legislative agreement on a school property-tax cap that would limit tax increases to 4 percent growth a year. Moreover, they agreed not to suspend taxes on gas for the summer months as a way to alleviate drivers’ pain at the pump.
Paterson, though, praised the agreements reached and left open the door for the state Legislature to reach this summer to address a property-tax cap and other issues, such as reforms to the state’s industrial development agencies.
He said that a tax cap, which he introduced earlier this month, was unlikely to get legislative approval this session and needs further discussion.
“The reason we are standing here in the United States of America and not Iran right now is because we have the right to disagree, we have the right to debate,” Paterson said. “And it takes a little longer than if we had a dictator here.”
This entry was posted
on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Standard for Albany. The unions still rule. And the taxpayers and businesses still get screwed. So, the exodus to places far from NY will continue as the state continues to sink into the quicksand.
What is that sucking sound?
That sound is that of life disappearing from New York as the state sinks into its own version of the Grimpen Mire.