Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr Spitzer is spending more money than he can generate from basic taxes. This year he intends to sell "tax stamps" to illegal drug dealers. If you buy crack or heroin as the "consumer" you best make sure there is a NY tax stamp on it. Yea - sure.
Last year Spitzer included in his budget $300M from Indian sales of cigarettes, however he had no means of collecting that money, so last years budget was short that $300M. Oh, by the way he included $400M this year and has no means to collect.
Also Spitzer wants to sell the NYS lottery to investment groups. He will get a huge one shot cash influx, but for the next 40 years our children and grandchildren will not see any income from the lottery.
Someone mentioned casinos. We allow the native american Indians to run the casinos. The state income is ONLY 25% of the profits from the slots, nothing from table games, etc. In Buffalo the Indians are going to build a $330M hotel/casino. Guess what, they dont pay any property tax on that facility. If NY were to legalize gambling and let The Donald build that facility it would go on the tax roll. Spend a night at the hotel or eat a meal in the restaurant - no sales tax. In Buffalo the sales tax is 8.75% and the room tax is 13.75%. What a loss of income for the state and local governments. If only the casinos were not built on sovereigh land.
And people wonder why companies are moving out of the state. Soon the only peopl eworking will be public sector.