Gov. Cuomo’s nose must grow a little longer every time the state’s latest commercial message hits the airwaves — which is quite a lot recently.
“Welcome to the new New York State,” the voiceover intones, “where cutting taxes for families and businesses is our business.”
The spot, which is supposed to spark business investment, goes on to declare that Empire State companies have saved more than $2 billion through “reduced taxes and lowered costs.”
That middle-class tax rates have been cut “to the lowest rate in 60 years.”
That the state is creating “tax-free zones for business startups.”
And that the economy has “created tens of thousands of new businesses.”
None of these cherry-picked factual statements is false, exactly. But the overall message distorts economic reality badly enough to make Don Draper of “Mad Men” blush.
In fact, New York’s business tax climate ranks dead last among the 50 states, according to the latest analysis from the Tax Foundation.
In fact, a lot of the tax savings for business took the form of breaks targeted to a lucky few, which simply shift the burden to other taxpayers.
In fact, the middle-class tax rate cuts touted in the commercial resulted in token savings — worth maybe a few...