ROBIN HOOD'S APPEAL

May 25, 2006

Maybe Robin Hood wasn’t so bad after all.

There are polls aplenty on the horse-race of elections, but today also brings one about the elusive issues. Many of the numbers in the New York Matters Poll, by the Rochester-based Center for Govermental Research, are far from shocking. (How well is state government doing? — 72 percent say “fair” or “poor.”)

But one of the surprising findings came in a question about the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the years-old court case that ordered the state to send billions more dollars to New York City schools. Albany leaders have always decried the so-called “Robin Hood” solution — taking money from wealthier districts to spend it on poorer schools. But the poll found that 69 percent of favor that option.

Who is going to pay those taxes? In every area outside New York City nearly one-third of the residents said taxes are the most important issue the a governor “can do something about.” (Their words, not ours.) In New York City, though, only six percent of the respondents felt the same way.