Ferrer, Weiner Trade Tax Barbs
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The Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer defended his proposal for a stock-transfer tax yesterday as his Democratic rivals continued criticizing the plan, which would force Wall Street investors to pay New York City’s school bill.
“Whenever you put out a comprehensive plan to try to deal with the crisis of education in this city, you’re going to take some punches, but I don’t mind, because I know who I’m taking those punches for – I’m taking those punches for 1.1 million school kids and their parents in this city,” the former Bronx borough president said at a morning press briefing.
A day after telling reporters he was not familiar with the tax plan of one of his opponents, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Mr. Ferrer said he was not familiar with a proposal for an accountability board that was proposed last week by another of his Democratic rivals, Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker. Mr. Ferrer’s school tax proposal would set up a similar board. Mr. Ferrer said he was also unfamiliar with the comments Mayor Bloomberg made about his tax proposal the day before.
The Weiner campaign sent a chart to reporters, comparing Mr. Ferrer’s tax plan to Mr. Weiner’s tax plan. The chart said the Weiner plan would raise $3.1 billion, compared to the Ferrer plan’s projected $1 billion, by cutting bureaucracy and taxing millionaires.
“Anthony Weiner has proposed a plan that would fund our schools without driving away middle-class jobs,” the congressman’s campaign spokesman, Anson Kaye, said.
A spokesman for the Miller campaign, Reginald Johnson, said: “Gifford Miller thinks the right way to fix education is his proposal asking the wealthiest New Yorkers to make a direct investment in New York’s children by maintaining their current tax level.”
The other Democrat in the race, C. Virginia Fields, blasted the Ferrer tax proposal Tuesday. She has not offered a tax plan.
In another development, New York 1 News reported last night that Reverend Alford Sharpton was not planning to endorse Mr. Ferrer. The black activist, who endorsed Mr. Ferrer for mayor in 2001, blasted him after his comments about the fatal shooting by police of an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo.
