Poll: Cap NY property taxes, close budget

The message underlying Siena College's most recent poll is that New Yorkers say they still want it all - if you ask them in a certain way.

Siena released a poll Tuesday that showed voters strongly support 11 proposals that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo outlined in his State of the State address Jan. 4, just days after being sworn in. They support a 2 percent property tax cap (83 percent for, 13 percent against), shrinking the number of agencies, authorities and commissions by 20 percent (68-25) and freezing state worker wages for a year (67-30).

They also want to close the $10-billion budget deficit without raising taxes (87-10) and establish public financing for political campaigns (70-24).

And how to pay for it all? The only potential way in this survey would be to continue the state's income-tax surcharge on people who earn more than $200,000 annually. In this poll, 55 percent opposed Cuomo's plan to discontinue the tax, while 42 percent supported it.

What's unclear is what sacrifices New Yorkers would be willing to make to achieve these goals. Many of the ideas could require freezing or cutting school aid and reducing school programs, reducing aid and services at hospitals and slowing the pace of ongoing projects such as road repairs.

What is clear is that Cuomo is in his honeymoon phase. The 776 voters surveyed like most of his State of the State concepts, from keeping state spending growth at the inflation rate (86 percent for, 11 percent against), mandating that state legislators fully disclose all outside income and clients (84-11) and, to a lesser degree, legalizing same-sex marriages (57-38).

The survey was conducted Jan. 10 to 13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results are available at www.siena.edu/sri.