The above taped interview from is important for the clues it gives us all in the WGXC listening area as to what the new year portends, politically. Key in the talking points captured is Cuomo's blunt insistence that "his push for a property tax cap shouldn’t be linked with changes to the current schedule of rent stabilization laws," as the Times Union's Capital Confidential blog put it this morning, January 11. “I think that these are separate issues, and they should be analyzed as separate issues,” Cuomo says. “One of the mistakes we’ve made in the past is that the Legislature has tended to take issues and group them together in a negotiating style rather that analyzing the individual issues, and making the best policy on that issue.”

Cuomo also firmly addressed the idea of any extension of the so-called millionaires’ surcharge, indicating any action there would face his veto pen: “My position is, has been, will be, that I’m against new taxes. In my opinion, that’s a new tax, therefore I’m against it.”

Cuomo further noted that he's expecting to deliver an on-time budget by the start of February, although he wouldn't confirm a specific date... yet. But he did add that he would push for formal discussions of his proposed 2 percent property tax cap before that time, and not let its implementation get bogged down in the state's always arduous three way budget discussions,

In past years, New York City rent control laws -- and the state's involvement in them -- have played a large role in political bargaining and discussions, and not always in Upstate/Downstate split opinions. On numerous occasions, representatives from Assembly and Senate districts with large second home populations have been told, or noted themselves, the importance of city rent controls on second home real estate and renovation economics.