Why are municipalities that have higher median incomes, lower poverty rates or both proposed to get AIM aid from the State of New York, while the City of New York gets none? No, the excuse in the Cuomo budget presentation, that New York City doesn’t need AIM because it has lots of taxes, doesn’t cut it. Other places could have personal income taxes too. Yonkers, for one, has had such taxes. Is it because local governments in the rest of the state have added employees over 20 years, while New York City has reduced employees?
And given that the State of New York is broke, why can’t Mayor Bloomberg ask that municipalities that do not have median incomes that are lower than New York City, or poverty rates that are higher, have their AIM aid eliminated too, to save money and reduce other cuts? Wouldn’t that also be equitable, and not make the state’s budget problems worse?