Council Speaker Quinn Discusses New York’s Finances

Mr. Moritz at the Shen Yun Performing arts show in Seattle (Alex Li/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—Council Speaker Christine Quinn discussed New York’s financial situation during an annual luncheon with the Association of Real Estate Women (AREW).

AREW is the real-estate industry’s longest-running supporter of professional women in real estate. During a Dec. 10 private lunch at the Bryant Park Grill, Quinn addressed some of financial concerns as well as possible solutions.

According to Quinn, New York’s economy is largely fueled by real estate and Wall Street, with 20 to 25 percent of its revenues coming from Wall Street. “So when there is a downturn like the one we are in now, there is almost an immediate cash flow effect on the city of New York. Real estate is right after Wall Street, [as] the second most important economic engine in our city,” Quinn said.

In response to budget cuts, Quinn suggested that the city look into ways to “diversify” the budget in ways that will have as little effect as possible to core services. One proposal being passed around is a change in the corporate tax structure; creating extra taxes for New York City businesses.

“We should tax businesses in New York City, the same way they do in New York State, the same way they do in twenty other states. Those twenty states bring in 41 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that’s through a single sales factor that only taxes you on sales,” said Quinn.

Adding to the idea of extra taxes for businesses, Quinn mentioned that it’s not a solution that can be used with the city’s current financial situation. “We couldn’t immediately move to that, I'll be honest, we would lose too much revenue, given the time we are in now,” she said.

“But we could change the law in Albany, phase it in over three to five years, and as the economy is turning up, we could be ready to seize that, draw companies here, but changing the law now will send the message to companies that New York is open for business, we’re preparing for the economy to get better, and we want people to bring their jobs here and build and locate their headquarters here,” said Quinn.

When asked about the controversial $400 rebate checks promised to New Yorkers, Quinn said that she believes they should still be given out. “We made that commitment to New Yorkers,” said Quinn. “We can’t pull the rug out from under them in December when they had every reason to believe they would get that in October.”

“We can spend between now and July going through the budget with a fine tooth comb to find places we can cut out without impacting the core services and core commitments, and I think the rebate this year was a core commitment,” she said.

A major concern for New Yorkers has been proposals to raise MTA fares. Quinn criticized the idea, questioning how the MTA is balancing its finances. “I think the MTA really needs to prove to all of us they’ve cut every bit of fat out before we move to extraordinarily high fare increases, like the ones they’re considering,” said Quinn. “One of the problems of the MTA is that there’s really no transparency in their budget. At times they had two sets of books. That’s really a big problem.”