A wealth tax should only tax the wealthy

Bronx: While I support the administration’s pied-à-terre tax to generate essential revenue to fund public transit, schools and city infrastructure, the recent court ruling striking down the initial implementation highlights a critical structural flaw in the current policy: the $1 million threshold for condominiums and cooperatives.

Setting the Phase One cutoff at $1 million does not target the ultra-wealthy or the international real estate speculators holding “safe-deposit boxes in the sky.” It penalizes middle-class families, retired civil servants and highly productive local professionals who have worked for decades to afford a home in our city. Manhattan’s median apartment price routinely exceeds $1.1 million, so a $1 million apartment is a standard one- or two-bedroom home, not a luxury estate. The initial rollout forced thousands of regular New Yorkers into a bureaucratic nightmare, requiring them to defend themselves against automated tax notices. Furthermore, placing this burden on co-op boards threatens the financial stability of entire building communities, risking maintenance fee hikes for working-class residents.

As the administration navigates the court-ordered “do-over” for the second rollout, I strongly urge it to collaborate with the City Council to raise the condo/co-op threshold to a realistic baseline, such as $4 million. That would target true luxury by isolating the top 5% of the market, and would shield the vital professional class that keeps NYC’s economy, healthcare systems and businesses running.

Denise Nowak

Stripping status

New Paltz, N.Y.: This carriage ban is so wrongheaded. I beg the mayor and City Council to reconsider. Have any of the decision-makers consulted with people who know horses? This scheme seems to have been cooked up by well-intentioned do-gooders who know nothing about horses. Their situation in America is precarious and getting worse. This plan will only make things worse. The wild mustangs in the West on protected land are being shot from helicopters by sick people. They are being rounded up and sent for slaughter by the government that wants the land for its rich buddies and industry. Twenty-thousand horses go to slaughter every year in America. A horse without a job is a dead horse. You are going to give 180 well-loved horses a pink slip.

Susan Zetscha

Animal anachronism

Brooklyn: I’m writing to express my support for the City Council and Mayor Mamdani’s action to ban horse-drawn carriages. That era, however nostalgic, is over, and there’s no need to continue to exploit these animals in that way. I also understand that this ban will affect a lot of people’s livelihoods and I’m sympathetic to that, too. May I suggest a new way to do the same thing? I’m sure there’s an inventive, imaginative, creative person out there who can design a solar-powered, similar-looking carriage as a substitute. It’s time to step into a new future, and the benefits to all would be tremendous.

Wanda Peakes

Myriad benefits

White Plains, N.Y.: Voicer John Procida rhetorically asks why we don’t ban cars since, as he notes, far more deaths are due to cars than horse-drawn carriages. I say un-rhetorically that society should indeed ban all cars everywhere, all the time. The advantages are too many to enumerate, but here are some: fewer deadly DUI/DWI incidents, traffic fatalities, hit-and-runs, road rage injuries (if not deaths), less pollution, less use of cars for getaways in illegal activities, no seniors or disabled drivers losing control of vehicles and becoming extra seating in a suddenly open-air restaurant dining room, no need for parking lots, spaces, rules or fines, and home garages formerly used to house cars become true storage rooms, not to mention greater in-person human interaction through increased usage of public transportation. Most importantly, no more need for gas nor the treasonous chicanery plotted by the president and an enemy.

Chris Lee

Daily danger

Belvidere, N.J.: Human fatalities from collisions with e-bikes from 2022 to 2026: 126. Human fatalities from collisions with horse-drawn carriages in the same timeframe: One. Serious human injuries from collisions with e-bikes from 2022 to 2026: 11,814. Serious human injuries from horse-drawn carriages in the same timeframe: five. Recently, we visited the Catholic Church of St. Vincent Ferrer on the Upper East Side. I needed eyes in the back of my head. Never mind the taxis, don’t dare put your foot on the street without looking for e-bikes. They are silent and will clip you from behind or sideways.

Dan Arthur Pryor

Masked men

Spotswood, N.J.: It seems that the vast majority of crimes are committed by people wearing masks and hoodies. It’s time to outlaw masks. If it’s a warm day and a grown man has his hood up, common sense says beware.

Tom Scott

AI adversary

Brooklyn: Students all over the country are protesting to stop further development of AI. I have just one question for these concerned students: How are you going to stop China from developing its AI?

Kathy Barry

Attack on dissent

Manhattan: Bramhall says it like it is (“In America any naturalized citizen can serve in Congress until they oppose Trump,” Oct. 19). But Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota isn’t just being forced out of Congress. The Trump administration is working on deporting her. All naturalized citizens are vulnerable to President Trump’s whims. Plus, you can be sure that naturalized Brown and Black people will be the first in line for deportation whether they’re elected officials or not. I would sure like to see spines stiffening in Congress. Naked authoritarianism is hard to miss.

Sarah Townley

Time to turn

Morristown, N.J.: Now is the moment for MAGA citizens to remember the old adage, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” In my opinion, the president and his incompetent, corrupt acolytes have debased the office and dragged the good name of America through the mud. Jan. 6 and the pardoning of the criminals who ransacked the Capitol will stand in history books as a day of infamy, a stain on our republic that will not wash away. You have diminished the heart and soul of America for the whole world to see. At long last, we must all acknowledge what has been plain to see: The lying emperor has no clothes. This is no time for timidity. Vote with courage, conscience and clarity. Vote like our democracy depends on it, because it does. Reject enablers and sycophants.

Pete Begley

Villainous visage

Bronx: Has anyone noticed the resemblance between the darker Stephen Miller and the lighter Vladimir Putin? And both Trump puppeteers.

Rose Mary Lancaster