The Prudent Thing to Do: Keep New Yorker's Tax Dollars in New York

(This is the opinion of Scarsdale10583 Publisher Joanne Wallenstein)

If our nation’s President was a student at Scarsdale High School he would be suspended.

Imagine your child making a video depicting feces being poured atop the high school cupola? What an image! Would the posting of the video break the law? Maybe not. But it would fly in the face of public decency. And that’s enough reason for the high school administration to take action. They don’t need a statute to know what’s indecent.

But it’s not only social norms of decent behavior that our President has violated. Beyond running roughshod over orderly government practice, the President’s administration has broken the contract between the federal government and the states to disburse funds allocated by Congress as specified in the federal budget.

In the past few months we’ve seen a vengeful President overstep his authority to withhold funds appropriated for healthcare, scientific research, education, transportation, infrastructure, the World Trade Center Health Program for 9/11 survivors and even food assistance. His latest move was to cancel funding for two important transportation projects for New Yorkers: the extension of the Second Avenue Subway and the Gateway Project, two tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey.

While New Yorkers continue to fund the federal government they are spending our hard earned dollars to build detention centers, fund the Argentinian government, purchase not one ,but two airplanes for Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and to send the National Guard into places they are not needed. None of these moves are authorized by Congress.

In 2023, the last year these numbers were reported, New York sent $89 billion more to the Feds than we got back and this year, with all of these cuts, the deficit for 2025 is sure to grow. What are we getting here for our federal tax payments, which account for 50% of my households’ tax bill?

The only evidence of the federal government that is visible here is the invasion of ICE agents, upsetting our economy and frightening the people who do the hard work to keep us afloat.
At this rate, New York will be in serious trouble in just a few months. Our coffers will be empty, unemployment will rise, our healthcare system will face challenges as will our schools.

What’s the solution? Here’s an immodest proposal:

Stop the flow of our money to a federal government that is disobeying the law. Send our federal tax dollars to Albany instead. The Governor and the State Legislature can recoup the funds that were promised to us and allocate them to all the federal programs that were cut.

Close the Federal IRS offices in the state – we don’t need them. Send our federal tax dollars to the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance instead. And if the federal government decides to sue us, bring it on. We can defy court orders just as easily as our fearless leader. He doesn’t respect the rule of law, so why should we? Keep our tax dollars in New York until this situation is resolved. It’s the prudent thing to do.

Let’s stop enabling a man with the mentality of a 12 year-old bully to divert our funds into his own pocket. Do what you would do to your own recalcitrant teen.... cut off his allowance.