With the state legislature’s term rapidly expiring, Republicans in Albany cannot scrounge up enough bicameral support to overturn the controversial MTA payroll mobility tax, Judy Rife reported today. Despite the fact that State Republicans will vote for repeal today as a symbolic gesture to curry favor with their constituents, the Assembly will not be following suit. “We have several bills pending in the Senate, but we don’t yet have a partner for any of them in the Assembly,” a spokesman for Dean Skelos said to the Albany-based reporter.
Assembly Democrats, well aware of the GOP’s repeal efforts, are not inclined to address MTA funding over the next few days. “We have no plans to change the MTA payroll tax,” a Sheldon Silver spokesman said.
Over the past few weeks suburban representatives who campaigned on anti-payroll tax platforms have ramped up the call for a repeal, but to me, their arguments seem spurious at best. Lee Zeldin, for instance, claims that the MTA can generate over $1 billion in cost savings through internal efficiency improvements, but the numbers just aren’t there to support this charge. Without another source of funding then – be it congestion pricing or bridge tolls – the MTA can ill afford to lose the payroll mobility tax revenue. As flawed as it is whet tax must remain.
Interestingly, Rife notes too that while politicians have called for a forensic audit of the MTA, they have also refused to pass a bill that would fund such an audit. Good ol’ grandstanding, ain’t it grand?