As New York faces a $15 billion budget gap this March, state lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are debating how to close it. One lifeline could be a multi-billion-dollar aid package from Congress. Another could be increasing taxes on the rich. 

The Fiscal Policy Institute's chief economist Jonas Shaende, in a Capital Tonight interview on Tuesday, laid out the options facing New York officials in the coming weeks, and how they include more than just a straight tax rate increase on upper income earners. 

At stake: billions of dollars in for health care and schools as well as local governments. There is also the concern that richer people could leave New York as a result of increasing taxes, depleting the tax base in the process.

The clock is ticking, however, for the legislature and the governor as the budget is expected to pass by March 31, the end of the state's fiscal year.