Up&Up

Even without Lyndon Johnson's proposed 10% tax surcharge, most citizens these days are already suffering from hemophilia of the pocketbook. Last year Americans paid $206.5 billion in all forms of taxes, with the Federal Government taking nearly 70%. Yet the state and local share of the take has more than doubled in the past decade, far exceeding the growth rate of Washington's proceeds.

In New York, the state bite has been especially feral in recent years, largely because of Governor Nelson Rockefeller's ambitious health and education programs and New York City's staggering fiscal woes. Last week New Yorkers winced again when Rockefeller presented his 1968 budget to the state legislature.

Rocky's first budget, in 1959, amounted to just over $2 billion. Since then he has impressively expanded the New York State University system from 42 campuses to 59, with an enrollment of 139,149 (TIME cover, Jan. 12). He has progressively beefed up welfare, highway construction programs and aid to the hard-pressed municipalities. But the costs have swelled as dramatically as the services.

Last week Rockefeller proposed a budget of $5.5 billion--an increase of nearly $856 million over last year, mainly to finance primary and secondary school education and aid to dependent children under welfare and Medicaid.

Though he sought a stiff curtailment of Medicaid payments, the new budget, if approved, will require a 20% surcharge on state income taxes, a 10-a-gallon rise in gasoline taxes, a 100-a-fifth increase in liquor levies, a rise of up to 50% in corporation and utilities taxes, and at least five other significant levies. Together, the new taxes must raise $494 million above last year's revenues. Said Democrat Anthony Travia, the

Assembly Speaker: "This is all but unbelievable."

Rocky could take some consolation, though: his budget will in all likelihood not be the year's record breaker. Next month California's Governor Ronald Reagan, who campaigned on an economizing platform, is expected to ask his legislature for $5.6 billion.

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