State pols ‘tag’ Cuo as plate-replace gouger
Two state lawmakers are introducing legislation to repeal Gov. Cuomo’s edict forcing motorists to cough up $25 to replace old license plates.
“People are outraged, and I get it,” said state Sen. James Skoufis, who is backing the measure along with Sen. David Carlucci, and said the requirement “really serves no purpose.”
Starting April 1, 2020, vehicles with plates 10 years and older will have to pay a $25 replacement fee regardless of condition.
Cuomo announced the fee Monday, along with a contest for New Yorkers to choose the new design. One option (right) is the bridge named after Cuomo’s father, the late Mario M. Cuomo.
Cuomo spokesman Pat Muncie said: “Cheap politics aside, the fact is the new 10-year replacement plan is fully in line with industry standards.”
Leave it to Gov. Cuomo to come up with a wacky Rube Goldberg-like scheme, even for something as small-time as license plates.
Cuomo this week announced that the state is changing the style of its plates, and everyone with vehicles more than 10 years old will have to get one.
Oh, it’ll cost you an extra $25 — plus $20 more to keep the same plate numbers.
As E.J. McMahon notes on the preceding page, Team Cuomo tried to present the change more as a fun contest than a new fee: New Yorkers get to vote on one of five possible designs, four that show the Statue of Liberty and one featuring the new Tappan Zee — er, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo — Bridge.
Critics speculate that the selections are rigged, because they’ll divide the pro-Statue of Liberty vote, leaving the plate with the monument to Cuomo’s dad likely to win.
“This indeed seems kind of rigged,” polling expert Nate Silver tweeted. “A bunch of near-identical Statue of Liberty designs will split the SoL vote.”
Some also point out that New York has far better-known symbols of the state: Besides Lady Liberty, there’s the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building . . .
Meanwhile, Cuomo is surely eager for the new revenue (an estimated $75 million up front from owners of the 3 million cars with now-expired plates), even if it’s just a drop in the state budget. Yet the fee, as McMahon argues, will only add to the evergrowing costs New York motorists already face, in tolls, insurance, maintenance, etc.
And it’s not even clear the new plates are needed: Cuomo insists the current ones are “not designed to work with the technology” being installed for E-ZPass readers. But the state already has license-plate readers in place that seem to work fine.
All of which will lead cynics to conclude: Cuomo is simply picking New Yorkers’ pockets again, dubiously claiming the money is for a new technology, while distracting them with a contest that’s rigged to honor his dad. It would sound far-fetched — if it weren’t so quintessentially Cuomo.