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NY goes for broke...
Topic Started: Mar 21 2013, 04:48 PM (169 Views)
LTC8K6
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
http://news.yahoo.com/york-state-budget-deal-includes-minimum-wage-hike-160739942.html

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The state's minimum wage, now at $7.25 an hour, would rise to $9 an hour by 2015. That would be accompanied by a business tax cut that includes phasing out a tax on utility companies over three years, starting in 2014-2015. The business tax cut includes breaks for businesses that employ young people and veterans.

Raising the minimum wage is an important issue for Democrats who see it as matter of workplace fairness. New York's proposed hike is in line with President Obama's push to increase the minimum wage, an initiative that the Labor Department has been promoting around the country.

But free-market and business groups say the move will overburden businesses and could mean companies cut back on lower paying jobs or offer existing employees fewer hours.

"This deal on the minimum wage is the worst kind of compromise, where a terrible policy is paired with token tax breaks in the hope that the latter will minimize the damage of the former," said Michael Saltsman, a research director at the Employment Policies Institute.

Middle-class families with children will get a tax cut of $350. The agreement defines middle class as those earning $40,000 to $300,000 per year. The middle class tax cut will reduce revenues by $1.1 billion over three years.

A surcharge on high-earning couples, making over $2 million a year, or single filers making over $1 million, is being extended. Introduced in 2011, it was set to expire in 2014.

The tax deal is already reigniting a longstanding debate about how taxpayers should share the burden of funding cash-strapped public services, and whether tax cuts are affordable as many municipalities struggle to close budget deficits.

Carol Kellermann, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, which describes itself as an independent budget watchdog, faults the extension of the surcharge on wealthy earners to fund tax cuts in other groups rather than using it to tackle deficits.

"It makes it pretty clear that there's no such thing as a temporary surcharge. Everything becomes permanent," said Kellermann. "There is still a structural deficit problem in New York and this is not being used to address that."

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kbp

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The easiest way to solve it, IMO, is to just split the nation and be done with it. Maybe base it on the electoral college vote and county vote oucomes.

Trade them West Virginia and Arizona for Colorado, North Carolina and Florida, throwing in ALL the immigrants for free.
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