In testimony today to Albany’s Joint Legislative Fiscal Committees, E.J. reminded lawmakers why he’s giving them the following counsel: “First, do not add any more to the state’s tax burden.”

A excerpt to remind Albany that we’ve already been there, done that, and still are there follows:

Let me begin by reminding everyone that the 2009-10 state budget included tax and fee increases that were initially valued at $6.1 billion, or 7.4 percent of total state fund revenues. This was the largest tax and fee increase in New York State’s history.

The MTA bailout plan, adopted last May, permanently imposed an additional $1.8 billion in taxes and fees throughout the 12-county downstate region, where most of the state’s personal and business income taxes originate. These statewide and regional taxes and fees created a further drag on an economy that was already being clobbered by the most severe downturn of the post-war era.

The largest item in last year’s revenue package was a temporary state personal income tax (PIT) increase that raised New York’s top-bracket marginal rate by more than 31 percent, to its highest level in a quarter-century, along with the permanent elimination of remaining itemized deductions for tax filers earning at least $1 million in taxable income. Taken together, these actions represented New York’s largest personal income tax increase in nearly 50 years. In percentage terms, New York’s marginal rate hike was the second largest enacted by any state in 2009.

What drives these job-killing taxes? Long Island economist Raymond Keating has a good piece in today’s Post about the state’s “obese schools.”