Death by a thousand cuts

The great tax robbery House Republicans wage on New York doesn’t stop at your bank account — though we now know just how hard that will be hit. If this windfall for the wealthy in the guise of middle-class tax relief gets through, 760,000 New York City households, most earning less than $75,000 a year, would pay $3.7 billion more, largely because the bill yanks state and local tax deductions on federal income tax filings.

A crunch of the numbers by the New York Times projects that nationwide, 45% of middle-class families will pay more in taxes in 2026 than today. Those should be two long nails in the coffin. And buried deeper in the haystack that is this 429-page bill is another: a measure to block states and cities from using tax-exempt bonds to finance privately built public works — the likes of hospitals, college labs and affordable housing.

Remember when Republicans championed such partnerships? Remember President Trump touted a plan to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure that way?

Now, aided and abetted by six New York House members — Reps. Tom Reed, John Faso, Elise Stefanik, Chris Collins, Claudia Tenney and John Katko — House Speaker Paul Ryan pockets the $39 billion the bonds are projected to cost nationally in the coming decade to help offset a staggering hundreds of billions in proposed cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

If they get away with it, affordable housing stands to suffer the most, because the bonds come with a side dish of corporate tax credits that make most projects financially feasible.

Without the bonds and their tax credits, amounting to $2.6 billion a year for the city alone, forget about ever reaching Mayor de Blasio’s promised land of 300,000 affordable apartments built or preserved. Forget about Gov. Cuomo’s 100,000-unit goal. Neither would be remotely feasible.

Forget too about the best hope for keeping public housing habitable, tapping private dollars for reconstruction. Or about building the supportive housing to get homeless people with serious mental illness off the street.

Why incentivize the production of infrastructure and housing that benefits the many when a few extraordinarily wealthy people think they need to get richer?