Lede: New York’s Governor is taxing tuition to help close his state’s multi-billion dollar budget gap. Jesse Russell reports.

One solution Gov. David Paterson has proposed for fixing New York’s budget shortfall is raising tuition for SUNY and CUNY students. The increase won’t be reinvested in higher tuition, but instead to generate revenue for general spending. The Fiscal Policy Institute’s James Parrott says Paterson is using the tuition increase in lieu of a progressive tax increase and it is essentially a tax on students.

[Parrot1]: Tuition as you normally think of it, where it goes to the University, it’s not being used for that. It is being used in lieu of a progressive tax increase.

Parrott says Paterson needs to put the option of progressive tax increases back on the table. According to Parrott such increases were used in 2003 to tackle the last major budget shortfall. Parrott added that in order to convince public sector unions that contracts should be reopened he likely needs to have a progressive tax increase on the table.

[Parrott2]: I can’t imagine public sector unions are going to lend themselves to a partial solution when the Governor has taken a major solution that has proven to be successful in recent years and he says he is not gonna do that.