By Cuomo logic, LI gets least bang for its bucks

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, at his daily news briefing today, said it would be "repugnant" amid the coronavirus crisis to call for an accounting of the amount of money each state contributes to the federal government compared to what it gets back.

But if you did, Cuomo said, "You're making a mistake because you lose if you do an accounting."

He then flashed the above chart to show how much more some states give to DC than get back from DC.

"If you want to do an analysis of who is a giver and who is taker, we are the number one giver. The number one giver. Nobody puts more money into the pot than the state of New York. We're the number one donor state," Cuomo said.

By that logic, then, Long Islanders are the number one "donors" in the country, according to candidates for political office on Long Island.

For more than 30 years, local political candidates have complained that Long Island gives more money in taxes and other revenues to Albany than it receives.

If Long Islanders give more money to Albany than they get back, and if  New York gives more money than any other state to DC than it gets back, then it follows that Long Islanders are getting the least return on their money than any other taxpayers in the country.


The candidates always promise to get more bucks back for their constituents.


Can't point to any difference they have made over 30 years.

But studies show they're not wrong.

Politifact, the fact-checking arm of the Poynter Institute,  rated as true a  Jan. 2018 statement by the New York state budget director, who said in a radio interview that  "70 percent of the income tax that the state collects happens to come from Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk and New York City."

Nassau paid $4.409 billion in personal income taxes to the state while Suffolk paid $3,233 billion into the total $39.726 billion in personal income taxes paid by New Yorkers, according to Politifact.

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in 2011 issued a study that found downstate suburbs outside of New York City paid $7.9 billion more in taxes to the state than came back to them in spending.

In 2010, after Republican Ed Mangano beat Democrat incumbent Thomas Suozzi for Nassau County Executive, he and then-Suffolk county executive Steve Levy and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino announced an alliance to try to get more equity for their combined downstate constituents. They said then the three counties sent over $3 billion more to Albany each year than they received back.

But hey, as Cuomo said today, "This is not about money. It's about working together, helping and sharing and people are dying. It's about grief and its about comfort. It's not about money."

"But if you want to make it about money, you're making a mistake because you're going to lose on a tally sheet. And it's not even going to be close."

Meanwhile, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran announced today that Nassau had received $103 million from the federal government while the Town of Hempstead received $134 million to pay for coronavirus-related expenses.

Not a bad first downpayment on the government's tab.