MESSAGE
| DATE | 2018-06-11 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Free Subways - sort of..
|
business
NYC to Offer Half-Fare Subway Rides to City's Poorest Residents
By Henry Goldman
Mayor de Blasio accepts deal insisted upon by the City Council
The $106 million discount will cover half a fiscal year
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ended months of resistance and agreed to
fund half-priced MetroCards for buses and the subway for the city’s
poorest residents in an $89.2 billion budget deal with City Council
Speaker Corey Johnson.
The two officials sealed the agreement with a handshake inside City
Hall’s rotunda Monday night, with de Blasio committing $106 million over
six months, starting in January. About 800,000 New Yorkers would be
eligible for the discount, saving an average of more than $700 a year.
Those who would benefit earn incomes below the federal poverty line,
about $12,000 for individuals and $24,339 for a family of four.
The mayor had supported the concept while refusing to back the council
proposal because he wanted to pay for it with a millionaires tax that
would also finance mass-transit improvements. The tax proposal never
received consideration by the Republican-controlled state Senate. The
subsidized MetroCard proposal probably had the necessary two-thirds
support to override a mayoral veto had de Blasio rejected it.
“This budget focuses on the central goal to make this city the fairest
big city in America,” de Blasio said as he announced the agreement at
City Hall, joined by Johnson and several dozen cheering council members.
The fare discount, he said “is a profoundly good and moral idea.” The
mayor said he’d continue to advocate for passage of the tax.
Johnson said the subway and bus discounts will be funded for just six
months while he joins the mayor in an effort to persuade the state
legislature to enact an ongoing funding mechanism, such as the
millionaires tax or congestion pricing. If those efforts fail, the city
will continue to pay for it, Johnson said.
Other provisions in the budget include funding to provide pre-school for
three-year-olds, with a goal to make the program citywide by 2020. The
budget also contains an additional $1 billion in capital spending for
the city’s problem-plagued 400,000-tenant public-housing agency. The
mayor also committed $12 million to equip every police patrol officer
with a body camera by the end of next year. An additional $10.3 million
will pay to expand the city’s summer youth employment program by 5,000
jobs, to total 75,000.
A strong economy has produced robust income and property-tax revenue to
generate surpluses for several consecutive years. The mayor has used the
unspent money to pay anticipated future expenses and reduce debt
service. This budget contains a total of almost $6 billion in reserves,
including $4.35 billion in the Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund,
$1.125 billion in general reserve and $250 million as a capital
stabilization reserve in the event interest rate increases raises the
city’s debt service.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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