An ad campaign to be launched Friday by the New York State United Teachers union will push for a tax increase for wealthy people in the state in order to add more spending for school aid and education.
The ad being released Friday is part of a half-million dollar buy.
“We need New York State, which is home to more billionaires and ultramillionaires than anywhere else, to stop shortchanging public school children,” said NYSUT President Andy Pallotta.
“More than 90 percent of New Yorkers support new taxes on the ultrawealthy because they know that it is time for those at the top to pay their fair share. We need to fund our future so New York schools don’t have to go without the social workers, classroom technology and supplies they need.”
The first ad is a 30-second digital and TV spot called “Broken Promises” and highlights income inequality.
“While the wealthy have pocketed gains from the recovery, our kids have been hurt,” the ad says.
The ad comes in the middle of the state budget season and a proposed spending plan from Gov. Andrew Cuomo that increases school aid by $826 million.
But education advocates are calling for more, saying the increase in aid should reach at least $1.2 billion.
Cuomo this year wants to alter the formula that determines how and where school aid is spent, a move he has said is meant to redirect more money to higher need districts.
Cuomo’s budget proposal does not contain a tax hike on the rich. The governor has not embraced tax increases for rich people, worried that combined with a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, the wealthy would flee the state and deprive New York of more revenue.
A large percentage of New York’s budget revenue comes from a handful of wealthy filers each year.
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins at the start of the year indicated her conference felt a tax hike would not be a first resort in 2020.
Assembly Democrats, meanwhile, are once again expected to push for a tax increase. In the recent past, they have introduced budget resolution calling for higher rates on people who earn $5 million and more.
The ad from NYSUT comes after a poll released this week the union had commissioned showing a majority of voters backed a tax increase for the rich.