New York authorities this Tuesday presented a budget proposal that provides for significant cuts in education and health care and a temporary increase in taxes for the wealthiest to make up for the state’s fiscal hole in the event of no federal aid of about 15,000 million coming. of dollars.
New York, the state most affected by Covid-19, calculates that this is the amount that has stopped coming in as a result of the pandemic and is asking Washington for aid to cover that deficit.
For example, the state governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, presented two draft bills for the next fiscal year (which begins in April) on Tuesday that take into account the possibility that the state will receive that 15,000 million or that it will only get 6,000, which would ” the worst possible scenario “.
In this situation, the budget would include cuts of about $ 2 billion in education, about 600 million in health, and about 900 million in other areas.
In addition, Cuomo is proposing a temporary tax increase for those earning more than $ 5 million a year, at a rate that would go from 8.82% to 10.82%.
The governor, a centrist Democrat, has traditionally opposed increasing the tax burden on large fortunes, something other members of his party have championed, but he believes it would now be imperative to try to balance the bills.
In any case, Cuomo insisted that the federal government should take its responsibility and help a state that “paid a bill for a covid that no other state in the country paid.”
President-elect Joe Biden has proposed allocating $ 350 billion to support state and local governments within his new stimulus plan, but its approval and the way the money will be distributed is up to Congress.