Note this under calculatedly horrible timing: Shelly Silver has conveniently flip-flopped on reinstating the same commuter tax he helped kill in 1999. This comes in the wake of his slap-down of congestion pricing, a proposal not entirely dissimilar in its effects on the City's fiscal outlook.

Newsday:

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver supports bringing back the New York City commuter tax he helped eliminate in 1999.

But a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), says the GOP is opposed to any tax increases.

Silver spokesman Daniel Weiller says the speaker supports the concept of the tax, but hasn't presented a specific proposal. He had no comment Friday on why the Manhattan Democrat has changed his position.

It's fair to assume that if there's no majority in the Assembly for congestion pricing, that there is no majority for a commuter tax. Not that this matters, because there's also no legislation, and definitely no majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, Democrats are running highly competitive races in a number of outer-borough and suburban Senate districts - Maltese versus Addabbo, Gennaro versus Padavan, Foley versus Trunzo, McElroy versus Hannon, Johnson versus Donno - and now need to contend with the entirely gratuitous impression that Democrats want to raise the taxes of their prospective voters. They don't want that, of course, but subtleties tend to get lost on the campaign trail.

The commuter tax may or may not be good policy. But talking about it, without an actual legislative proposal, without the votes to pass it, with no public support, isn't helpful; unless, of course, the idea is to let Senate Democrats run against the not all that popular speaker, in which case it would be brilliant political ju-jitsu.  read more »