New Yorkers saving a few dollars in taxes instead of shipping them upstate won’t be enough to address the fact that it costs $3-5 billion to build a mile of subway in the city these days.

Something people have discovered is that if you offer to spend more on something, the guy who is selling it to you will gladly accept.

Compared to many comparable countries, the US has such a huge number of local governments, with so many functions devolved to the local level.

If state governments took over more of the functions of local governments, or if local governments were merged – such as a single local government for an entire metro area – that might solve many of these problems.

When the state government takes over, the suburbs contribute to the state-wide tax base. Similarly, when the suburbs are merged into a single metro-wide local government, their local taxes now start contributing to services in other parts of the metro area which they commute to or rely on.