New York’s so-called congestion pricing plan (aka the cordon tax) seems to be dead, so some Democrat in Albany has come up with an alternative way of funding transit: the millionaire’s tax. The plan calls for raising $5 billion in five years for mass transit by putting a 3/4-percent income tax surcharge on all New Yorkers who earn more than a million dollars a year. New York Governor Paterson has announced a blue-ribbon commission to study the proposal.
Yeah, tax the rich — that’s the ticket. Why didn’t anyone think of that before? After all, the rich benefit so much from mass transit, so of course they should pay its extraordinary costs. Much better to soak the rich than to try to find a way to make transit work at a lower cost (such as by not doing such foolish things as building the Second Avenue Subway).
