Most people know Cynthia Nixon as an actress, but in March, she announced her candidacy for governor of New York. She has some big plans and is hoping to bring about some major changes.
But is everyone on board with this?
She said in her announcement:
“We are now the most unequal state in the entire country, with both incredible wealth and extreme poverty. Something has to change. We want our government to work again, on health care, ending mass incarceration, fixing our broken subway. We are sick of politicians who care more about headlines and power than they do about us. It can’t just be business as usual anymore.”
She wants to make a difference for the minorities in the state, and that means that everyone needs to be punished equally for their crimes. She feels that more black people are being put in jail for drug crimes than white people who are committing the same crimes.
She said if it’s OK for whites to smoke marijuana, it should be for everyone else, as well.
Which brought her to say:
“A lot of you have been asking about my position on marijuana, so here it is. I believe it’s time for New York to follow the lead of eight other states and D.C. and legalize recreational marijuana. The simple truth is, for white people, the use of marijuana has effectively been legal for a long time. Isn’t it time we legalize it for everybody else?”
She believes that by legalizing marijuana, it will help bring in more money for the state and bring in more jobs. She said:
“In addition to ending a key front in the racist war on drugs, regulating and taxing marijuana would generate hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue for our people and create important agricultural opportunities for our state.”
She went on to talk about some other plans she had.
She mentioned:
“There’s a blue wave happening, not just in this country but in this state. I’m not the only person who’s running for office in November and come November, we are going to finally control the New York State Senate. So, we need the governor to allow the MTA to actually put a price tag on the rescue of the trains and we need to do a combination of, we need to do comprehensive congestion pricing, and we need a millionaire’s tax, and we need to do a carbon tax.”
Nixon is hoping for some big changes, but not everyone is on her side. Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan is one of them.
He explained that he didn’t think a millionaire tax was a good idea for the government or for anyone.
He said:
“It’s bad public policy, its bad governmental policy. As long as I am vertical and breathing and as long as I am in the Senate and as long as I have the chance to lead the Senate, we are not doing the millionaire’s tax.”
Gov. Cuomo is also against her campaign.
He said in a statement:
“The millionaire’s tax has been proposed for multiple years, it has failed every year. There is virtually no legislative leader who said they support it.”
Cuomo campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith added:
“After basing her entire campaign on attacking the MTA and Governor Cuomo, Cynthia Nixon endorsed the MTA’s own plan to fix the subways and the Governor’s FIXNYC congestion pricing mechanism. The only daylight between Nixon and the governor is her support for Bill de Blasio’s vintage and dead-on-arrival millionaire’s tax.”
There is still a lot to sort out before the election.
Although some current officials might not agree with Nixon, she does have a lot of other people who seem to support her. She won’t be the first celebrity-turned-politician, and she won’t be the last. Only time will tell if she has what it takes to make some change and do good for the state.
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