Limbaugh Leaving New York
In light of an announcement that New York State will be raising taxes on those earning over $300,000 annually, Rush Limbaugh has stated that he will stop doing the occasional show in New York, and might even stop broadcasting from Florida, where his show usually is based.
“When I am there working I pay whatever, you know, my rate is based on income for that day in New York. And I try to go as little as possible. If it weren’t for hurricanes down here, I would never go up there. New York is the escape valve in case hurricanes are showing up in our area, because of the loss of electricity. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to look for an alternative studio somewhere outside New York, perhaps Texas — another no-income-tax state — and I’m going to get the hell over there, when a hurricane starts coming our way, ’cause I told Mayor Bloomberg: I’ll be the first to lead the way. You know, this is just… I’ll sell my apartment. I’ll sell my condominium. I’m going to get out of there totally, ’cause this is just absurd, and it’s ridiculous — and it isn’t going to work. It’s punishing the achievers for the mistakes and the lack of discipline on the part of a bunch of corrupt politicians that have run that city and state into the ground for I don’t know how many years — and I, for one, am not going to take the blame for it.”
There is no question that New York State is extremely bloated and inefficient, and has a dirty dirty habit of wasting the public’s money. There is a common understanding among those who work in State agencies that they could cut their budgets in half and do pretty much the same job.
Here in New York, however, there is a more pressing, immediate concern than whether New York State has a culture of inexcusable government largesse. That immediate concern is the decision by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to raise subway fares from $2.00 to $2.50, whilte also cutting services. By law, the MTA is required to maintain a balanced budget, which led to this extreme decision. Unless the state comes up with more money to bailout the MTA, working people, the elderly and everyone else will get a 25% hike in their transportation costs– basically a huge regressive tax– and for no reason other than the state’s inability to manage its finances.
The argument in New York against taxing the wealthy mainly revolves around the belief that if you tax the rich, they’ll leave the state, thus drying up our tax base. With the exception of the Drug Addict radio show host, I’m not sure you’ll see much of this. From my perspective, it looks like the defenders of the wealthy are saying that there’s little chance of low and middle class people leaving the state, so it makes a lot more sense to tax them.
