Man, I tell you, this bit with Spitzer just keeps getting better… The Weekly Standard’s Mike Goldfarb: [1]
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has taken a lot of abuse in recent weeks–for his hastily-dropped plan [2] to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, his quickly-withdrawn plan [3] to tax internet purchases, and his move to speed-up release for violent criminals [4].
But if Spitzer is to have any prayer of winning a second term, he needs to correct this mistake very quickly. Spitzer’s Division of Tax Appeals says New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter owes millions in back taxes [5]:
Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter, known for making the rounds at the city’s hot spots, is on the hot seat with New York State, which says he owes back taxes because he claimed he lived in Florida when he was really a resident of the Big Apple…
“What the state is saying is that he’s a New Yorker at heart and because he has some important things here in his apartment, even if he’s here only 30 days, he’s a New Yorker,” said John Lieberman, a certified public accountant with the firm Perelson Weiner in New York City, which advises athletes and entertainers.
“New York State is phenomenally aggressive on this kind of thing and Derek Jeter – I think they’re making a test case out of it for athletes, actors and CEOs, people with multiple residences,” Lieberman said.
New Yorkers are sophisticated enough to recognize that the city’s confiscatory tax rates encourage athletes and entertainers not to make their permanent residences there. And if Jeter asserts that he intends to reside permanently in Florida once he’s retired from baseball, what New Yorker will hold that against him? After all, that’s a New York cliche.
And it gets better… The NY Sun… [6]
By Day 365, Governor Spitzer will propose legislation legalizing gay marriage in New York, a top aide to the governor said yesterday.
The Spitzer administration moved to reassure gay-rights advocates that it wasn’t backing down from a campaign promise to support a same-sex marriage bill. The governor did not address the issue specifically in his 61-minute State of the State address on Wednesday.
Hmmm. He’d better not be planning on a second term. With this radical left agenda of his, my guess is he’s going to have negatives that make Hillary Clinton look like Gold.