Spin Cycle

A story in the NYSun:

Gov. Paterson and his wife make $270,000 a year. They own a house in Guilderlands. They can also live in the rather grand executive mansion in Albany if they choose. And, they also enjoy the benefits of a quite nicely priced $1250 a month two-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in central Harlem.

Is the governor, who supported rent stabilization in the Senate, taking advantage of a program that supposed to make housing available for people with much more modest incomes (not to speak of other living alternatives)? Or, does the story have more to do with the ridiculous laxity of rent stabilization than any abuse by Paterson, other than his easy acceptance of privilege as a member of the political class?

Maybe we're dense, but we found this paragraph striking:

"While laws enacted in 1994 and updated in 1997 by the state government deregulate apartments and return them to market rates in certain cases, Mr. Paterson's income does not disqualify him from paying stabilized rent for some time. Under the laws, tenants who make more than $175,000 on average for two years must give up rent protections, but only if their rent is more than $2,000 a month, a threshold it likely will take years for Mr. Paterson's apartment to cross."

If you have rules to withdraw the benefits of stabilization from people who are too rich to need it, why would those laws only kick in when the apartment gets more expensive? Isn't an even cheaper apartment even more unjustifiable for a really rich person?