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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer and WNYC. While Democrats are the majority shrank in the house of representatives in Washington, as we were just discussing, the new year brings a historic Democratic Party supermajority to the New York State Senate. That means they could theoretically override Governor Cuomo if he vetoes progressive measures that he thinks go too far. One way the Dems might try to use their new voting power early is to enact tax hikes on the wealthiest New Yorkers to deal with the COVID fiscal crisis that the governor has so far resisted, resisted those tax hikes.

These could include an income tax hike on million-dollar a year incomes and something that my next guest is championing, a small tax on stock trades that he says could bring massive amounts of money to the state and to the MTA coffers while causing those who pay it very little pain. With me now on that, and more is Democratic State Senator James Sanders of Southeast Queens. We'll also talk about his bill to change the law on No-Knock warrant in response to the police killing of Breonna Taylor, plus how the vaccine rollout is going in his Queens district and more.

Senator Sanders, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC and happy new year.

James Sanders: Happy new year to you too, sir. It's a joy to be back and what a great program you're having so far.

Brian: Thank you very much. Can you explain the stock transfer tax proposal and how much money you think it could generate?

James: Absolutely. New York State already has a stock transfer tax. It just is being rebated back to the 1%, to the people who at this moment need it the least. There tax can raise anywhere between $12 and $14 billion a year and it's such a small tax, if you're trading for less than $500 is one penny and a quarter of a penny. Over $500, it's a nickel, and it's really aimed at the high-frequency traders. It's not aimed at the little guy. It's aimed at these folk who are using all kinds of computers to trade and we believe that it could help solve the problem in New York State.

Brian: There are a number of arguments that opponents make against reimposing the stock transfer tax and alternatives to it that they say would be more effective. Let me go down some of these arguments against your proposal with you from an op-ed on the New York news website, city and state. For one thing, this analysis says it wouldn't raise nearly as much as you say, maybe it would be $4 billion, not something like $13 billion.

More important, it says the securities industry accounts for 17% of state tax collections and 6% of New York City tax collections, in other words, a lot, but there is evidence that New York is losing its dominance in the sector and so encouraging further flight of this industry would have serious negative implications for sustaining vital public services. Why not think that this wall street money could flee, Would flee because it can flee and these trades would take place on other stock exchanges or just based in other states?

James: Well, it's an interesting argument, but it doesn't pan out. Here's why. The New York Stock Exchange is the most efficient, cheapest institute, to use that word, stock exchange in the world. It's also the largest. It is four times the size of the Chicago, it's four times the size of just about anyone else and it's not imposing a stock, a tax, it's collecting the tax. We already have the tax collected.

Whether it is 4 billion, as the op-eds says, or $12 billion, we have a $15 billion a year hole in our budget over four years, 60 billion. That means a lot of doctors being let go, a lot of teachers, firemen, police, all of these people being let go, a lot of city government going down the drain and state. It's time for those who have made an enormous amount of pandemic billionaires and trillionaires to put in a little of that to ensure that the great city that we all say we love continues and the great state, of course,

Brian: Does that answer why they wouldn't flee? Why wouldn't they just list more stocks on the Tokyo Exchange or the London Exchange, or as the op-ed says with the technologies that exist, they could relocate portions of the business just outside New York and other states.

James: Well, we are not taxing the technology. We're taxing the headquarters and the headquarters are passing along visa taxes to the investors already. They're not even feeling the tax. They're passing it along. The other taxes, the stock exchanges, most of them already have a stocks transfer tax. They're going to pay a version of this wherever they go and ours is still the most efficient stock exchange in the nation. They would go from a grade A, to a grade C over a penny and a quarter of a penny.

Brian: Do you have the governor's support or a supermajority big enough for an override on this tax?

James: We are working on both of these things. We think that this is such a logical thing. We remind everyone that this tax was created by the Republicans in 1905. At that time, the New York Times and others ran editorials saying that the stock exchange would leave, that it was horrible. They later retracted it, one of the few retractions of the New York Times. They later said, "This was a great idea. We were wrong." People have been saying that the sky is going to fall in since 1905. We are working on both of these.

We're going to be faced with some hard choices in just a few days. A lot is riding on that election and Georgia that you spoke of, you and your guest spoke of a moment ago. If we can win in Georgia, if president Biden does well for the cities and the states, we may not need this tax, but if these things don't come this way, then someone is going to have to help make up that $15 billion hole. We say that those who have benefited the most in this time should certainly put in an extra nickel

Brian: State Senator James Sanders, Democrat from Southeast Queens, my guest. I want to go onto your bill for search warrant reform, including No-Knock warrant after, of course, the police killing of Breonna Taylor, when they broke into her home in the middle of the night, you're calling this a nationwide model for search warrant reform. Can you give us some of the details?

James: Absolutely. Right now there's a helter-skelter of ideas that go on with these search warrants. What is being done wrong, let's take the beyond on the Taylor case, the information that they were acting on, the police were acting on was more than a month. It was actually three months old, which meant that they had up-to-date information, they may not have done this. We require that they can't act on anything older than two weeks. This will cut down on a lot of the mistakes that they were made there.

We also are requiring that if there are children or elderly, that this is noted in the warrant, so, therefore, police could take extra caution. We're also saying that most of these no-knocks don't have to take place in the evening, that they can take place during the day when the people are alert and aware. We are saying that only in most extreme cases, should you even use a no-knock. If it's terrorism, if it's a kidnapping or something that you really need it for.

We have support from some of the organizations that actually are doing the no-knock warrant, organizations that comprise of SWAT teams one of the presidents have joined us and said, "You know what? This is bad policing, and we don't need to go about this." We are garnering a lot of support for not just Breonna Taylor but for the incidence in New York State and we intend to ensure that good policing, policing that ensures that the police are not fired upon, people breaking into doors and in your house, you don't know who they are. If you have a weapon, you're going to fire, it's bad for the police also.

We're ensuring that there are far fewer no-knock and what they call quick knock where people go to the door, whisper police, and then break down. We are requiring that there's at least 30 seconds after you yell out who you are before we have these type of raids. This is just good policing that we're talking about. We think it will benefit everyone, including the police.

Brian: We're getting a few phone calls of pushback on the stock transfer tax proposal. Let me take one of them. David in Englewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, David. Thank you for calling. Happy New Year.

David: Yes, happy new year. Listen, I have a couple of quick questions. Has this gentleman ever worked in the private sector? I would like a quick answer to that. He seems utterly oblivious to modern economics. New York State and New York City have to totally restructure the way it does business. You used to have 45 or either 47 congressional seats. You're down to 29 today. You're going to lose one or two, probably two this year. Don't you understand that people are voting with their feet? They're tired of every tax game coming over Albany. The reason I'm concerned, I'm an investor and even though I live in New Jersey, New York City affects the regional economy.

Brian: David, I'm going to leave it there just for time, he put several points on the table. How would you respond, Senator?

James: Yes, I've worked in the private sector and we are being supported by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who is also supporting this concept, sir.

Brian: Well, he brought up that argument, again, about people voting with their feet, and a lot of people certainly did leave New York City during the pandemic, and gone to other places for the moment or permanently, we don't know. Then the argument becomes, does it become more tempting now to leave New York and it's the wrong time to give people an additional reason?

James: Well, I would answer that-

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Brian: Of course, it's those people with the most money, with the most means who are the same people who tend to be invested in the stock market, who can most easily leave and are leaving?

James: Would it be wiser that we let go of police officers, firemen, teachers, doctors? When you're speaking $15 billion, the only way that we can resolve that is by going after the number one place where we put our money of the state and that's in education and then number two health care. These are the exact areas that you don't want to cut in a pandemic. If we're saying that a small tax of a penny and a quarter will make people flee, or a nickel will make people flee, those people were probably gone already. I would suggest that people would flee if there are fewer police on the streets, and fewer fire people on the streets, and fewer doctors and teachers. Those quality of life affairs are going to force people to flee rich and poor faster than an extra nickel will.

Brian: Before we run out of time, I want to also check in with you on how you think the vaccine rollout is going in your district in Southeast Queens so far. I want to play a clip of Governor Cuomo from over the weekend on when he'll get vaccinated, that might be relevant.

Cuomo: I am committed to social and racial justice in the distribution of this vaccine. It will be available as fairly and as quickly as we can make it happen. Race or income will not determine who lives and who dies and I mean it. That's why I say to you today that I want to take the vaccine. I move around a lot and come into contact with many people and I would feel much safer if I took the vaccine, but I will not take the vaccine until the vaccine is available for my group in black, Hispanic, and poor communities around the state.

Brian: Senator, is the governor doing the right thing there and how's the vaccine rollout going in your district which does have mostly black and brown people in it?

James: Also did the second-largest amount of dying in the first wave, I'm not happy with how the vaccine, the rollout is taking place. The people who need it the most are simply not getting it whether that means that New York State has a distribution problem or whether that means the nation has not produced it in the right amounts, I can't say that we're not getting it, we did the dying. We should have the first shot at living, we should have the first shot at the vaccine. I appreciate the Governor saying that he won't take it but one dose is not going to help much. We need to find a way of breaking the bottlenecks and get millions of doses onto the street.

Brian: Which is a bigger issue in your district, as you see it slow rollout of the vaccine or resistance to taking it as it becomes available because of distrust of the medical establishment?

James: Both go hand in hand. The longer there's a slow rollout, the more you have conspiracy theories that arise when people see that other people are taking it and they are living and not growing another head or glowing in the dark or any of these other strange things, you will see the resistance melt away, Will it be 100%? Of course not. There's always going to be a group that says they will never, they will live off the grid and never take these things. Okay, God bless them but the rest of us are willing. As a leader, I will lead by example, I will go public and take it in front of God and country or whatever we need to do.

Brian: I took a call pushing back on your stock transfer tax proposal. Now I'm going to take a call of supporting it. Here's Josh in Montclair, you're on WNYC with New York State Senator James Sanders. Hi, Josh?

Josh: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to point out I'm definitely in support of the tax. In fact, I think it should be larger and broader. I think years ago, investing used to mean that. You'd buy a stock, hold on to it, and invest and it's become about just a wild, now it's just gambling. If one thing benefited the tax would stop the day trading, I think they should even tax down to the little guy, to the people that really don't know what they're doing, are reading and listening to reports, they start buying stocks and then it crashes because as retail investors, they're never going to get the inside scoop. It would really cut down on the volatility if the big traders are having to pay extra, little traders are going to maybe think once or twice before pulling the trigger on some of these trades and then they end up always on the losing end of it. I think it's a great idea beyond just the tax revenue, it would cut down on volatility and stock trading across the board.

Brian: Josh, thank you very much. Senator in our last couple of minutes, what about the other proposal for increasing taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, the so-called millionaire's tax, increasing the rates on million dollar a year incomes at least during this COVID fiscal crisis in the state and give us a little overview as we wrap up here and now that there is a Democratic Party supermajority in the senate meaning you could pass more progressive legislation and override Governor Cuomo's veto if he vetoes it. What do you see as the top policy agenda items that we should be looking to Albany for in the coming weeks?

James: Well, the first and most important issue that's facing the supermajority is, of course, helping to maintain the standard of life for New Yorkers. This is seriously challenged by a $15 billion deficit that is confronting us. We are going to really work on those things. Yes, there are several proposals afoot. Some, of course, have greater merit than others but we have such a large hole that you're going to have to really come up with major things. A one base run, in a case like this, will not do much for you. You need home runs for the people of New York.

However, let me alert people that the Democratic majority is a very responsible majority. We are not interested in killing the golden goose. We're not interested in crashing a system. We are interested in making sure that the system is more equitable for everyone. We are trying to make sure that it flows in a responsible fashion. This is the time when we do need to see patriotic millionaires and billionaires. This is the time where if people made incredible gains during this pandemic, then they should certainly put a nickel, a penny, or some portion of their gains to ensuring that we don't throw firemen into the street and police officers into the streets. That will crash the system more than an extra nickel.

Brian: A tax hike for people making more than a million a year as a new form of patriotism for these emergency times says New York State Senator James Sanders from Southeast Queens. Senator, we always appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

James: Enjoy, take care, sir. Bye-bye.

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