Blame Senate Republicans for NYC's Sales Tax Hike!

posted by izengabe
Fri, 07/10/2009 - 12:07pm

Last night (after the gridlock was broken) the NYS Senate voted to raise the NYC Sales tax by .5%, an almost 6% increase to the new rate of 8.875%.

The vote was 43 to 19 with many Republicans crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats to raise the sales tax.

Sen. Ruben Diaz apparently got up on the Senate floor and beg the Republicans for almost an hour to join with him to defeat the tax hike. Democrats Sen.. Hiram Monerrate and Kevin Parker also voted against the tax hike.

So this was a bill the Republicans easily could have killed.

In my opinion this was a HUGE missed opportunity for them. After a month of chaos the 1st thing Republicans in the Senate do when the leadership is settled is join with the Democrats to raise taxes.

Categories: sales tax Skelos state_senate

Will the real republicans please stand up?

posted by vivadelgado
Tue, 06/23/2009 - 4:24am

As if being a Republican in NYS wasn't hard enough we now have Skelos and Co to thank for the latest episode in what is the continued soap opera of the NY GOP. First the loss of Tedisco now this. So far not a good year for the urban elephants.

As long as we have have these men in power representing NY's 2nd Party you can pretty much bet on continued minority status. At a meeting of Young Republicans not long ago a friend asked me if I could remember the last time there ever was a serious Republican primary challenge to a sitting state senator. Obviously I couldn't think of one. Can You? Democrat state senators are challenged all the time. Incumbents have a high re-election rate but at least the Dems face some opposition from within there own party.