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De Blasio: Tax The Rich Proposal Not Class Warfare

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
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NEW YORK — New York Mayor Bill de Blasio denied Monday his tax the rich proposal to fund the deteriorating city subway system is a call for class warfare.

“It’s not class warfare at all. It’s saying that people should pay their fair share,” de Blasio shot back at The Daily Caller previously accusing TheDC reporter of having a “political axe to grind.”

“And we need a millionaire’s tax so that New Yorkers who typically travel in first class pay their fair share so the rest of us can get around, so the rest of us can get to work, so the rest of us can live our lives here in this city.”

When asked by the Daily Caller how he could assume that the New York residents he wants to tax “typically travel in first class” and don’t take the subways to work like other New Yorkers, whose commutes he wants subsidized, De Blasio stated, “Let me be clear, we said it very clearly. We’re not begrudging anyone’s success but the success that many wealthy have achieved have been because of government policies that favored them – a tax code that favored them.”

The mayor claimed that the wealthy New Yorkers he wants to impose the tax on are rich in part “because of the MTA.”

“Now, to put this in perspective, the MTA has been around a long time, this would be the first millionaire’s tax in MTA history and it’s about time. And let’s be blunt about this. There are a lot of wealthy New Yorkers. The folks I mentioned, that less than one percent – 30, 35,000 people who would be paying this tax are doing very, very well. And they, in fact, do well in part because of the MTA,” de Blasio said.

“When the rest of us get on subways and buses to go to work, the folks who own those companies do well. When customers go to their stores and businesses, they do well. If it wasn’t for subways and buses that function they couldn’t do as well,” he added.

De Blasio, however, rarely takes the subway system to work, and when he does, a bevy of reporters and security detail follow him.

The mayor sniffed at those who criticized the tax hike for the 32,000 tax filers,  around one percent, according to City Hall.

“That individual will pay about $2,700 more in their annual taxes,” de Blasio said. “It means about seven dollars per day…. They are not going to miss seven more dollars a day.”

The New York City mayor, who is up for reelection this year, blamed the century-old subway problems on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature, who he says are responsible for overseeing the Metro Transit Authority.

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