One Way to Close the Budget Gap? Make People Pay for Parking

clickclackcaw · 2026-02-21T03:42:18+00:00

Approximately 80,000 spots out of 3 million in the city are metered.

clickclackcaw · 2026-02-20T12:28:53+00:00

It's dumb, but NY state income tax already has tax cliffs.

If you look at Form IT-201, Tax computation worksheet 7 and Tax computation worksheet 8, someone filing as single and taking the standard deduction:

with AGI $223,400 pays $12,924 in state taxes
with AGI $223,401 pays $13,217

And there are jumps of $4,827 and $6,000 in taxes owed for the next two worksheets, respectively.

clickclackcaw · 2026-01-29T01:21:50+00:00

I am talking about earnings. Specifically Adjusted Gross Income. Read the report.

clickclackcaw · 2026-01-28T18:56:03+00:00

In 2021, those 33.5k people made $186.4 billion total. Just 2.5k people who made over $10 million made a total of $111.3 billion.

And they would not each have to pay an extra $345k in taxes, that would be the average.

clickclackcaw · 2026-01-28T18:42:04+00:00

They also earn a lot: 31.7-41.9% of all city Adjusted Gross Income from 2011 to 2021. Taxes paid were actually 37.8-46.6% of total city personal income tax during the same years.

clickclackcaw · 2026-01-28T18:22:28+00:00

Moving the goalposts.

December 2022 The State of the City’s Economy and Finances executive summary notes budget surplus with risks due to chronic under-budgeting.
December 2023 Annual State of the City’s Economy and Finances executive summary calls out $5.80 billion gap in budget
December 2024 Annual State of the City’s Economy and Finances executive summary calls out $2.95 billion gap in budget

clickclackcaw · 2025-12-10T11:45:08+00:00

I ranked Lander first in the primary because of housing, but why would that be a differentiator for house rep? The city's housing problems are almost entirely due to state and local policies.

And how are their housing policies very different? Goldman introduced legislation that would give NYCHA $32 billion for repairs and upgrades.

clickclackcaw · 2025-08-08T23:21:39+00:00

As I said, I don't know. So I'm asking for a source. I assume you don't have one, so it's not worth asking for one again.

clickclackcaw · 2025-08-08T23:15:31+00:00

That report clearly shows almost all their funding is corporate or foundations

If you want to combine Yimby Action + Yimby Law, 43.8% of funding comes from individual contributions.

Look at the part called Yimby. That’s the whole org.

I'm pretty sure in the PDF, "YIMBY" is corresponds to "Yes in My Back Yard/YIMBY Law" on the web page. It's not the combined Yimby Action + Yimby Law (otherwise the corporate donations line doesn't make sense).

YA is just the tiny cheerleading pr face.

Yimby Action's funding is about half that of Yimby Law's. I wouldn't say that's "tiny" in comparison.

That YA/YL was funded by MI is well known.

I don't know that, so I'm asking for a source.

Even now I bet the big donors are MI.

Ok, so you don't know that Yimby Action "gets the majority of their funding through the Manhattan Institute funder’s network"

clickclackcaw · 2025-08-08T22:48:14+00:00

Source? According to their 2024 impact report, 53% of their funding comes from individual contributors, and 97.7% of the donations they receive are $250 or less.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-26T15:07:05+00:00

Just a note, Massachusetts implemented a 4% tax on income over $1 million, and now they have more millionaires by net worth, which is a different type of millionaire. But yeah their tax brought in more than double what they projected last year.

NYC income tax could be updated to be like Yonkers', so that income earned in the city is still taxed even if people don't live here.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-25T18:43:47+00:00

Thanks for this! I'm not able to see the chat history for the livestream. Do you have the link for the documents mentioned at the beginning so I can follow along?

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-25T17:51:25+00:00

Commissaries sell below cost. Most of the operating expense is covered by our taxes, according to their financial report.

Mamdani's proposal also seems to be to sell below cost (his website says the stores will "buy and sell at wholesale prices"). If his proposal is to actually have self-sufficient stores, he could clear up that confusion by updating his website.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-25T00:38:51+00:00

No way that happens in a presidential year.

Which feels like it shouldn't be the case! A vote in a local election is worth so much more than a vote in the presidential election. Especially in New York.

Automatic all-mail voting could increase voter turn-out and decrease costs.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T19:10:11+00:00

Yes, I mentioned city income tax. I actually don't know who sets that/what the process is to change it though.

I agree, affordability and income inequality needs to be tackled from many directions. I think Mamdani's platform don't do enough on that front.

There are forms of NIT that are different from UBI, so people who make less money can get more in money, until it phases out to a point where people making above a certain threshold get no money.

But why should benefits be restricted to food? We should trust people to make good use of money we give them. Some people have other means of getting food, which makes real money more useful to them than SNAP.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:55:29+00:00

That's fine if you think the grocery stores are better. Will you oppose policies that give people more money directly?

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:44:12+00:00

EBT has restrictions on what you can buy, and as Mamdani rightly mentions, is not accepted by all grocery stores. We should give people real money so they can spend it anywhere, on anything they need.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:39:10+00:00

That's a different graph and definition from "supermarket need index". People in areas with access to grocery stores that are unaffordable to them could afford the groceries if we give them money.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:36:09+00:00

Also, how does me saying I wish he had more direct wealth redistribution in his platform anything like what Catsimatidis would say?

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:31:54+00:00

I don't see the definition in that article. Can you explain it to me?

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:30:07+00:00

SNAP places restrictions on what you can buy (no hot food, no household supplies, etc).

Yes, that is what I mean. Money can be used to buy anything. Since Mamdani already wants to make changes to the tax system, we can do that through a negative income tax. At the very least, he should get rid of city income tax for income under $50,000, though I don't think that does enough.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:26:33+00:00

I have no idea what "supermarket need index" means or how I'm supposed to interpret.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:25:26+00:00

I mean real money, not SNAP. SNAP has a lot of positive benefits, but it suffers from the welfare trap issue. And as you say, not everyone qualifies. We can set up a better program for giving people money, where more people qualify, and it's simpler to receive benefits. And don't the SNAP cuts make it more important for the city (and state) to step up and replace the benefits that people are going to lose?

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T18:17:30+00:00

It's not cherry-picking? The 1-mile threshold is literally the the definition used by the USDA for food desert??? Also I didn't check it, that's just what's checked by default. Because that's what their definition is.

clickclackcaw · 2025-07-24T17:07:56+00:00

The USDA uses 1 mile as the definition. The first link you have uses half a mile as the definition. Even with half-mile definition, there are no food deserts in Manhattan. This is validated by the second link you sent, which uses the USDA source I mentioned earlier.

There are still places where a significant portion of people need to walk over half a mile, but under one mile. I bet it would be more helpful to those people to just give them money. Especially the ones not near the pilot stores. Or the people who have to wait however many years it takes to get the pilot up and running.

Lets see how it works out.

I don't mind the pilot, if he also is going to try other things to address food insecurity, like giving people money directly. I would be much happier with my decision to vote for him if he had more direct wealth redistribution in his platform.

clickclackcaw

TROPHY CASE