Schneiderman: MTA payroll tax is 'a bad tax'

State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, campaigning on Long Island for the first time since winning last week's Democratic attorney general primary, said the much-derided Metropolitan Transportation Authority payroll tax is "a bad tax."

Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat who voted with 31 other members of his party to enact the tax, which charges employers in the MTA service region 34 cents for every $100 of payroll, preferred a plan that enacted tolls on East River bridges.

"Yeah, it was a bad tax," Schneiderman said in Brentwood's Timberline Park after a news conference on his suburban crime-reduction program. "I was much more supportive of the original idea. This is not a well thought-through tax."

Ever since state lawmakers approved the MTA payroll tax last year, it has been a hot political issue on Long Island and particularly in Suffolk. Republican opponents to state Sens. Brian Foley (D-Blue Point) and Craig Johnson (D-Port Washington) are campaigning on the issue and Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice tried to use it as an issue against Schneiderman in the attorney general primary campaign.

Virginia Lam, spokeswoman for GOP attorney general candidate Dan Donovan, said Schneiderman's positions "clearly ebb and flow with wherever the prevailing political winds are blowing."

Schneiderman's comments came hours before Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy was to testify at a public hearing on the MTA's proposed 2011 fare and toll changes. Levy and Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano have assailed the state agency for cutting services and raising fares for Long Islanders after state lawmakers passed the 12-county payroll tax.

Schneiderman said the alternative to passing a budget that included the MTA payroll tax was shutting down state government and said he does not regret voting for the payroll tax.

"The bills were compromise bills. I was a vocal supporter of an alternative plan to the payroll tax. I wish I'd prevailed, but that's not something that really relates to the duties of the attorney general."

Schneiderman also defended his support of Alianza Dominicana, the upper Manhattan social service agency to which he has steered state funds. The organization is operating under a "corrective action plan" with New York City to fix its financial woes.

"Everybody involved in the government [in Manhattan] has helped them one way or another," Schneiderman said. "If there are any financial improprieties they have to be investigated. I've already supported a full airing of the facts."