Governor as Spending Cop: Defending the Whole from the Parts
By Kent Gardner
NEWS FLASH: New York’s state & local tax burden is the highest in the nation! What? You knew that already? Just for the record, the Census Bureau reconfirmed this in its release of 2004 stats. At nearly $5,300 per capita, New York’s tax burden is 59% above the average for the rest of the nation and comfortably ahead of Connecticut, the state that is next in line.
One message that came through loud and clear in CGR’s New York Matters poll was that taxes are on everyone’s mind. In every region except New York City, taxes topped the list of issues that matter (education is deemed the highest priority in NYC). Eighty-three percent of residents believe that state government is doing only a fair or a poor job of keeping taxes low and 39% believe that cutting taxes should be the state’s highest priority for the economy (“supporting new & existing businesses” is next highest at 25%). And 78% think that property taxes for education are too high.
No surprise here. What did surprise us was the degree of unhappiness about how money is actually being spent. Respondents complain about the level of taxation at every opportunity. Yet when asked what bothers them more, the level of taxation or how the money is spent, the latter gets the nod: Sixty-eight percent picked “how the money is spent” to 31% picking the “level of taxation.”
We observed the same trend throughout the survey. Despite how unhappy we are with our taxes, we are even more unhappy when we feel that the money isn’t being well spent. We think school taxes are too high but we don’t want a school system resembling Mississippi’s. When asked about the highest priority for education, “providing a high quality education for all” got the vote of 58% of respondents compared to only 19% who believe that lowering property taxes should be the priority. And when tax reduction is pitted against public safety, 44% picked “keeping us safe” v. 30% for “keeping taxes low.”
What do we want from government? Yes, New Yorkers want high quality public services. Yet we expect those services to be provided efficiently and we don’t want our taxes to strangle the economy. As the New York Matters poll confirms, most of us believe Albany fails to achieve the right balance between quality and efficiency. Nearly three-quarters of poll respondents assigned state government an overall score of fair or poor—and this impression varies little by race and ethnicity, gender, place of residence, age or income level.
And this is why the governor’s race is so very important: Every state politician is caught between two conflicting demands: Cut my taxes NOW—but don’t forget to send more money to my school district, my city, my county, my sports stadium, my performing arts center or my daughter’s soccer league. While we have the right to expect that every assemblyman and every senator will balance the interest of the state against the incessant squealing for more pork, the buck stops on the governor’s desk. For those running in districts, politics places a greater demand on bringing home the bacon. That political dynamic is less important for those running statewide, particularly gubernatorial candidates like John Faso, Eliot Spitzer and Tom Suozzi. More than anyone else, the governor has to defend the state as a whole from the constant demands of its parts. It is not an easy task.
Gardner is President and Chief Economist of CGR. This article was published in the Rochester Business Journal on June 9, 2006.