Spinola also echoed the common warning on raising the taxes of rich New Yorkers, pointing out that people making over $200,000 per year--the magic number for the Obama Administration's new tax policy--generate $4 billion of taxes for the State of New York. Spinola remarked that with 4% of the population generating 55% of the income tax in the state, "it doesn't take a lot of them" to decide to move to spell trouble for the fiscal environment here.

Finally, Spinola slammed the new MTA bailout, simply calling it a "disgrace." REBNY had supported the Ravitch plan, he explained, and the current plan he felt could cause more harm than good. The payroll tax, Spinola asserted--while only taxing one-third of 1%--will still kill jobs, as many as 20,000 he estimated, as companies--particularly smaller ones--look to their bottom line to make up for that shortfall. Moreover, the new plan, even with the 50-cent surcharge on taxi-rides only allots about $400 million for the MTA's capital table. Spinola's prediction was not sunny, "The MTA capital program will not be covered in a matter of months."

He urged the people of New York City to look at other cities' transit allotments, which average "around the 50%-mark" of the cost of running their mass transit systems. New York City's MTA prices pay for "well under 50%," he explained. The solution spoke to Spinola's theme of the night, which was sacrifice and compromise.

"When [a company] is not selling enough widgets," Spinola expounded, the solution is "not to increase the price of widgets." Spinola gives some credit to the Governor and the Mayor for proposing jobs cuts and a halt on pay raises--4% and 3%, respectively--but that some of the job cuts are woefully inadequate to deal with the problems at hand.

Spinola did not rely solely on doom and gloom, however. "I believe New York City has come back from all the [crises] before," Spinola asserted. He pointed to the 1970s for examples of broader cooperation throughout the city, most notably when commercial real estate pre-paid real estate taxes to help the city shore up its budget and how unions used pension money to buy bonds from the city.

Spinola also expressed a desire to see forward-thinking projects, which could help New York avoid longer-term problems. The Mayor and the city "need to come up with programs to incentivize" business for when the economy comes back, he urged. Some examples Spinola offered were options to waive the commercial rent tax on businesses that signed leases equaling or exceeding five years or even bringing 421-a--a recently repealed and controversial tax abatement for residential developers--as ways of keeping businesses in New York City.

"I hope you've all paid your taxes," he laughed. Spinola leaned on the lectern and recalled a joke he used to tell about New York City real estate, "You can rent a beautiful space in New Jersey for the taxes you pay in New York." His concern now, he explained, was that the joke was coming true.