State GOP Senate: Read Our Lips

Republicans in the state Senate said yesterday they will oppose Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to increase the motor vehicle insurance fee from $5 to $20 on cars registered in New York.

Republicans seem to have found their war cry for this year’s elections: Oppose all new taxes and fees.

Already, the GOP is opposing an Assembly plan to increase income taxes on the rich. They are, however, joined by Spitzer on that one. Spitzer has said he will oppose any new taxes.

But the Republican senators, who hold just a one-seat majority in the Senate, are also taking aim at about $1.7 billion in new fees and “loophole” closers that Spitzer wants to enact to increase state revenue. They say the measure equates to a tax increase, yet they haven’t laid out how they would close the state’s $4.6 billion budget gap without it.

Still, they are starting their fight over what they’ve labeled the “Spitzer Car Tax.”

The car insurance fee is collected annually from for each insured motor vehicle. The fee was increased from $1 to $5 in 2003, Senate Republicans said. It has been scheduled under current law to be reduced to $1 on July 1.

“Upstate New York’s drivers represent 32 percent of New York’s population and 44 percent of New York’s drivers,” said Sen. Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton, who heads the Senate Transportation Committee. “This is clearly a misguided tax on upstate that hardworking New Yorkers can’t afford.”