NO TO CYN TAX
GOP state Senate big: Nixon won’t get her way
ACTRESS CYNTHIA Nixon said Friday she’s counting on a “blue wave” of Democratic victories this fall to help pay for subway repairs — but the leader of the state Senate says her tax plans won’t become a reality.
Campaigning at a Brooklyn subway stop, Nixon, who is challenging Gov. Cuomo for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor, said Democrats are likely to win control of the state Senate in November and will be willing to approve a millionaire’s tax and “comprehensive congestion pricing,” which are key elements of her plan to finance upgrades to the city’s struggling transit system.
“There’s a blue wave happening, not just in this country but in this state,” Nixon said. “I’m not the only person who’s running for office in November, and come November we are going to finally control the New York state Senate.”
Earlier this week, Nixon (photo) rolled out a plan to fix the subways that called for a $5.76 fee for cars to enter and exit a congestion pricing zone in the busiest parts of Manhattan and would also take funds from a “polluter fee” she intends to impose on fossil fuel companies and a millionaires’ tax to fund the plan.
Nixon, however, could not say how much she would actually need to raise for the plan.
“So, we need the governor to allow the MTA to actually put a price tag on the rescue of the trains, and we need to do a combination of, we need to do comprehensive congestion pricing, and we need a millionaire’s tax, and we need to do a ACTRESS CYNTHIA NIXON, who is challenging Gov. Cuomo in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, can’t seem to get it right when it comes to the upstate city of Ithaca.
Nixon drew mocking criticism a while back when she said upstate begins at Ithaca, a comment she later said was a joke.
But her campaign on Friday repeatedly misspelled the name of the city in an email alerting potential supporters to an upcoming candidate meet-and-greet. The email repeatedly spelled Ithaca as “Ithica.”
The Cuomo campaign quickly pounced, referencing Nixon’s character on “Sex And The City.”
“I know the character @cynthianixon played on TV never left the island of Manhattan, but you’d carbon tax,” Nixon said. During a radio interview Friday with AM 970 host Frank Morano, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County) said Republicans have no intention of losing control of the Senate, and he threw cold water on attempts to impose a millionaire’s tax and congestion pricing. “It’s bad public policy, it’s bad governmental policy,” Flanagan said about a millionaire’s tax. “As long as I am vertical and breathing, and as long as I am in the Senate, and as long as I have the chance to lead the Senate, we are not doing the millionaire’s tax.” Flanagan also said congestion pricing would be difficult to approve without “a lot more details” about how it would be implemented, think someone trying to play the role of NY gubernatorial candidate could hire better writers than this #Ithica,” tweeted Cuomo campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith.
Nixon spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said the email was sent in error.
“Something like this obviously would have been caught through our normal review process,” Hitt said. “The proper steps have been taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
The statement included a picture of a person á la cartoon character Bart Simpson repeatedly writing the correct spelling on a blackboard.
Nixon, who must begin collecting signatures across the state next week to get her name on the September primary ballot, will be in Ithaca on Sunday for a roundtable and meet-and-greet. adding that most commuters already feel they are “overpaying for a service that is not meeting their needs.”
Cuomo this week said congestion pricing — not a millionaire’s tax — was the best way to fund the $19 billion, five-year plan to repair the subway system proposed by New York City Transit Authority President Andy Byford.
“The millionaire’s tax has been proposed for multiple years. It has failed every year,” Cuomo said Friday during an interview on NY1. “There is virtually no legislative leader who said they support it.”
The governor had previously created a Fix NYC panel that recommended a congestion pricing plan that would have required motorists in the busiest parts of Manhattan to pay as much as $11.52 a trip, as well as additional surcharges on for-hire cars and taxi trips. Cuomo, however, never publicly backed the Fix NYC congestion-pricing proposal.