A deal has been struck among New York State legislators and Gov. Paterson to tax some higher income New Yorkers at a somewhat higher rate. See also the report in the New York Daily News. and the Albany Times Union

In my opinion this is a good deal for New Yorkers and a great victory for the complex coalition of labor unions, community organizations and social service agencies which lobbied for months. The irrational, unplanned and wildly harmful budget cuts proposed by Gov. Paterson will largely be avoided. The increased tax rate will produce about $4 Billion dollars which, while greatly needed is not quite enough.

The worst part of the deal is that the two-step rate increase expires in three years which means we will have to re-fight this fight then.

The coalition, One New York: Fighting For Fairness, will now have to face our Billionaire Mayor who proposes taxes on low and moderate income New York City dwellers. Mr. Bloomberg refuses to tax the personal income of higher earning City dwellers -- preferring instead much higher and very unfair sales taxes.

Congratulations are due to the UFT and Randi Weingarten, to the Alliance for Quality Education and Billy Easton, to the Working Families Party and Daniel Cantor who led and staffed the effort and to the hundreds organizations across New York City and State which rallied members, lobbied legislators wrote letters and met in community centers and church basements across NYS. I thank those legislators who carried the ball in Albany especially Eric Schneiderman, my own Senator, Daniel Squadron; Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and my member Brian Kavanaugh.

As a bizarre side-bar, Monday's New York Times features a series of "millionaires in the street" interviews on the attitudes of high earners to higher tax rates ; in perfect balance some were for, some against.