New York Attorney General’s Citizens Empowerment Act: An Important Step Towards Less Government

Recently hidden in New York’s political newscape is the recent passage of the Citizen’s Empowerment Act, proposed by our own attorney general Andrew Cuomo. Now, I am generally no fan of Mr. Cuomo’s; his behavior during the AIG bonus fiasco was repulsive, and his demand to release a list of all honest employees who received said bonuses was truly infuriating. However, the proposition of this bill has redeemed him somewhat in my opinion. 

Essentially, this bill was proposed because the state of New York is divided into 10,521 separate districts, each with its own unique taxes on top of state taxes. In addition, many of these districts overlap (my house actually exists near one of the exact spaces of an overlap of 3 districts). This causes homeowners to have to pay a few different sets of taxes, leading to an occasional discrepancy where they will be paying low taxes on one district(say, education), and much higher taxes on another. As said previously, this is all on top of state taxes. This produces an unnecessary burden on families both wealthy and poor, to pay for town and county services which, more often than not, are poorly run. 

The gist of the bill states that, should a town decide it wants to, it can consolidate or even eliminate these districts and thus its extra taxes. This is done by means of an open vote, with 10 % of voter’s signatures necessary to authorize the consolidation. This would eliminate taxes paid for libraries, schools, and other forces. Meanwhile, it would streamline vital services such as fire and police, who can run into jurisdiction issues in the current system. 

For the most part, I am in full support of this bill. Two of the things I like most in this world is the possibility of less government bureaucracy and lower taxes. This bill seems to promise both. It is also very democratic in nature, requiring a vote before anything is considered. Still, a few reservations exist on my end. Will this mean higher state taxes in already one of the most taxed in this union? Or will this have the benefit of giving less money to public schools, forcing them to streamline their spending and focusing on the betterment of curriculum instead of wasting money on other projects? Will this lead to an increase in centralization of state power? Or will it not matter, as I believe on the town and county level people can govern themselves without anything lower than just the state. Hopefully, this will further my idea of a very, very, very limited government, but we shall wait and see. For now, I commend Mr. Cuomo for the suggestion of this bill.