New York City is once again being told that it faces a painful choice: raise property taxes or accept fiscal disaster. That’s a false choice. Property taxes are already crushing homeowners, especially in Staten Island and the outer boroughs. Seniors on fixed incomes, young families trying to buy their first home and small business owners barely hanging on with inflation and rising costs cannot afford to be City Hall’s fallback solution every time government overspends.
The truth is, New York City doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem — and there are billions of dollars in realistic savings and alternative revenue options that can close the current budget gap without raising property taxes by a single dollar.
The first and most obvious place to start is government itself. Over the past decade, New York City’s budget has exploded to a staggering $127 billion. That’s more than the entire budgets of most states. Yet, despite record spending, taxpayers are being told it still isn’t enough. Before asking homeowners to sacrifice more, City Hall should implement an immediate hiring freeze for non-essential administrative positions…