NYC slashes education, police budgets as New Yorkers face tax hikes
New York City Mayor Eric Adams Thursday announced significant budget cuts to education and police services due to the “immigration crisis.”
Adams, who previously invited waves of illegal immigrants into the “sanctuary city,” recently began warning that illegal immigrants are going to “destroy New York City” and said he would have to cut services to taxpayers, particularly those in the low-income bracket, to contend with the crisis.
Now the mayor is making good on his promise. The New York Times reported last week that the new budget cuts will place a hiring freeze on the New York Police Department. The freeze is expected to bring the number of police officers below 30,000, a 20-year low.
Education services will also be cut by $1 billion over the next two years, affecting summer schools and universal prekindergarten programs. Libraries will close on Sundays beginning next month.
Last week Adams warned that this is “only the beginning” of what he promised will be “extremely painful for New Yorkers.”
“No city should be left to handle a national humanitarian crisis largely on its own, and without the significant and timely support we need from Washington, D.C., today’s budget [cuts] will be only the beginning,” he said Thursday.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a Frontline News inquiry if he would support a call to slash the salaries of New York State lawmakers, who remain the highest-paid in the nation. In December New York legislators awarded themselves a 29% annual pay raise from $110,000 to $142,000. The bump made New York state lawmakers the highest paid in the country, surpassing their California counterparts at $119,000.
Nevertheless, 19 of those lawmakers signed a letter in September calling to increase taxes on the highest-earning 5% of New Yorkers to grapple with the crisis.
State Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), a self-described socialist, expressed strong support for tax increases.
“We should increase taxes because it’s economically just policy to offset all costs for our state to function,” said Salazar. “I’d say that even if our city and state hadn’t seen an increase in migrants seeking asylum, this moment makes it all the more important for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.”
Queens Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas, another socialist lawmaker, offered last month to house all immigrant shelters in her district but has yet to follow up on that offer, reports the New York Post. Instead, her Chief of Staff Brian Romero amplified the call for a tax increase.
“A reminder: This is a choice. We are cutting services for New Yorkers when we could #TaxTheRich. Don’t blame migrants for lack of leadership,” said Romero.
Gunning for the wealthy has not proven to be a winning strategy, however. New York has lost around 400,000 people since the pandemic began, an exodus which is being blamed in part on the high tax burden. These “tax refugees” also include a staggering number of high-income earners. In 2020 alone the number of individuals earning more than $750,000 a year fell by 10%. This significantly impacted the state’s tax revenue, as the 41,000 filers in the top 1% pay more than 40% of the state’s income tax, according to Fox News.
According to the IRS about 300,000 of New York City's wealthiest residents who left the city in 2020 collectively earned $21 billion in total income in 2021. IRS figures also showed the state lost $19.5 billion between 2019 and 2020 due to emigration.
