When the going gets tough, the millionaires might go elsewhere...at least if they are in NY, apparently

Quite sad if we can't get the millionaires to pay a bit more in taxes to fund better education for students.

'Millionaire's tax' sinking in NY budget talks

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders indicated Wednesday that the so-called "millionaire's tax" the Assembly hopes will reverse Cuomo's proposed deep cuts to school funding is sinking.

Republican Senate leader Dean Skelos said that as far as he's concerned, the surcharge aimed at New Yorkers making $1 million and more a year is dead. He said he and the Democratic governor remain strongly opposed in the three-way negotiations with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

"It's a tax and it should expire," Skelos said following a closed-door meeting of leaders. "That is our position and generally when it's 2-to-1 in these discussions, generally the two win."

Silver, a lower Manhattan Democrat, said after the meeting: "I don't draw lines in the sand. Everything is open. Everything is negotiable."

His plan would affect 0.04 of 1 percent of New Yorkers, raising $700 million in the fiscal year beginning April 1 and $2.6 billion the following year before it expires, balancing both years' budgets.

Currently, Cuomo calls for a $1.5 billion cut in school aid -- equal to 7.3 percent -- partly to address a $10 billion deficit. The Senate proposes restoring $280 million and the Assembly proposes restoring $200 million, which could grow if the millionaire's tax is approved. Cuomo and the Senate call the tax counterproductive because it could drive the wealthy -- many of them employers -- out of state, further reducing revenue growth in a slow economic recovery.

"The governor's budget is devastating and the two budgets from the Legislature restore small fractions of the cuts," said Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education, a school aid advocacy group. "Unless they find a way for the two houses to come together and combine their restorations and maybe more, we are going to see thousands upon thousands of teachers leaving classrooms because of this budget."

Cuomo has argued that school districts can cut waste, increase efficiency and use the reserves many of them have to avoid any layoffs, a position not shared by teachers unions or schools.