Andrea Stewart-Cousins | AP Photo WFP asks candidates to stop defending taxpayers

ALBANY — Candidates seeking the endorsement of the Working Families Party in 2020 are being asked about their positions on a number of predictable topics, such as single-payer health care and an increase in the minimum wage.

But a questionnaire from the party also includes an unexpected entry. In essence, the party asks would-be candidates if they are willing to stop talking about taxpayers and taxes.


“Messages that frame ‘taxpayers’ as an aggrieved or marginalized group promotes an anti-tax, anti-government worldview that is often used to justify disinvestment and austerity policies,” the question reads, according to a copy of the document obtained by POLITICO.

“’Taxpayer’ has also become a racially coded term designed to appeal to white individuals and reinforce the misconception that they are paying taxes to support the needs of people (often implied to be non-white) who don’t pay taxes. Will you avoid messaging that centers ‘taxpayers’ or ‘tax burdens’ and instead talk about ‘public funding’ and the public as a whole?”

Candidates who answer in the affirmative would be breaking with traditions of political discourse that are older than the 19th Century halls of the Capitol building. Even politicians who embrace the Democratic Party's progressive agenda often talk about issues taxpayers face and the need to mitigate the state and local tax burden.

“While our national government vindictively uses the tax laws to punish our state, we are going to lower our tax burden for middle class New Yorkers and make the tax cap permanent,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in her opening remarks to this year’s session last January.

“We were pretty clear, our conference, even last year, one of the first things we did was the tax cap,” Stewart-Cousins said last week, referring to a state-imposed restriction on property tax hikes. “We know how the burden of taxes, certainly on middle class, low income New Yorkers, certainly is very difficult.” Stewart-Cousins has run with the WFP's endorsement in the past.

Asked about the WFP's question, Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-Nassau County), said: "I don’t know how to even respond to that."

“I don’t think that is a winning strategy in the suburbs," he said. "Maybe it works in New York City? But Nassau County, Suffolk County, Westchester — these are the highest property-tax-paying counties, among the highest, in the country … Taxes are always the number one issue.”

“The last time I checked citizens of all races and ethnicities pay taxes,” said Sen. Phil Boyle (R-Suffolk County). “The Republicans in the Senate have argued that the left controlling the entire state government has not been good for protecting taxpayers on Long Island and other parts of New York State, and this is a perfect example of why we were right.”

Incoming WFP State Director Sochie Nnaemeka said that the current messaging around “taxpayers” makes it more difficult to make the tax code fairer by placing greater burdens on the wealthy.

“For too long, talk of ‘taxpayers’ has been used to assert that everyone — from working class families to billionaires — are overtaxed,” Nnaemeka said in a statement. “The reality is the wealthy are paying far less than their share at the expense of working people — and we will back candidates who speak honestly about this massive inequity."

On Thursday, the WFP announced its endorsement of four Democratic state legislators from New York City — Mike Gianaris, Julia Salazar, Ron Kim, and Yuh-Line Niou — in advance of potential primary challenges next year.