A majority of New Yorkers support mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s proposed tax hike on the wealthy to support public schools, but state politicians say there is no chance of passing a tax increase in Albany because of elections next year.
New York City voters support de Blasio’s plan by a margin of 63 percent to 32 percent, with Republicans overwhelmingly against it, according to a
Quinnipiac University poll.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats back the proposal to increase income taxes on city households earning more than $500,000 to fund pre-kindergarten and after-school programs in New York City’s five boroughs. That figure drops to 61 percent for independents and plummets to 39 percent for Republicans.
De Blasio campaigned heavily on the tax hike, but it’s “based on a false premise that won’t happen,” the
New York Daily News reports.
Doing so would be politically perilous for Gov. Andrew Cuomo and every state legislator, all of whom are up for re-election next year, the Daily News reports, citing political insiders.
Even former Mayor David Dinkins has suggested his former aide de Blasio consider reviving the commuter tax instead.
The Quinnipiac poll also showed:
• New York voters strongly agree that their state government is dysfunctional, with 82 percent saying government corruption is a very serious or somewhat serious problem. Cuomo, not legislative leaders, should be in charge of weeding it out, 51 percent of voters say.
• Fifty-two percent of voters oppose public financing of state elections.
• More than half of voters disapprove of the job the legislature is doing but 56 percent are pleased with their own state senator.
• New Yorkers remain divided about natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale in upstate New York. Forty-four percent support drilling for economic benefits while 46 percent oppose it because of environmental concerns.
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