September 18, 2023
By State Senator Tom O’Mara
It’s worth repeating that New Yorkers across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions, and statewide, are worried about making ends meet. On top of that overriding concern, they see this state becoming less safe, even less affordable, less free, less economically competitive, less responsible, and far less hopeful for the future.
A recent statewide poll from the Siena Research Institute, for instance, found that most New Yorkers, by a wide margin, believe that this state is headed in the wrong direction – and that’s been the case now for nearly two years, as far back as October 2021 in this polling. By a two-to-one margin, according to the Siena poll, 62% of respondents believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Yet, it’s like the leaders of New York’s one-party government are living…somewhere else. Albany Democrats acknowledge, for example, that New York faces an affordability crisis causing the exodus of thousands upon thousands of citizens to more affordable states, however their answer to nearly every challenge we face is to offer another handout to satisfy a political ally. They simply show no interest in reining in out-of-control spending, eliminating taxes, lowering costs, cutting burdensome regulations and mandates, restoring public safety, or doing away with an approach to law and order that is more pro-criminal than ever before.
In fact, just the opposite.
It’s the reason that our Senate Republican conference keeps up the drumbeat for a “Rescue New York” strategy that we issued early in 2023 — recognizing that if we didn’t speak up for these priorities, put them on the table, talk about them every change we get, they would never become a part of the public discussion that needs to take place, in every corner of this state, moving forward. We need to discuss a comprehensive set of goals to help rebuild and strengthen local and state economies, focus on the financial challenges facing many middle-class families and small business owners, and make public safety a top priority.
Heading into this fall and fast approaching a new legislative session in January 2024, it remains our strong belief that we can only rescue New York by restoring the right priorities that focus on fiscal responsibility and affordability for all taxpayers, rebuilding and revitalizing New York’s local economies, and addressing rising crime and lawlessness.
Albany Democrats cannot be allowed to keep going in a completely different direction from where most New Yorkers want to go. They have put this state’s future on high alert. As I have said repeatedly over the past few years, the Albany Democrat direction for New York is a recipe for producing billions upon billions of dollars of short- and long-term spending commitments that will require billions upon billions of dollars in new taxes, fees, and borrowing for future generations of state and local taxpayers.
It’s not working. It won’t work. It can’t work.
The overriding goals of Rescue New York would:
● offer a safer and better quality of life for all New Yorkers by repealing bail reform, HALT, Raise the Age, and other disastrous pro-criminal policies while strengthening support for law enforcement and crime victims;
● focus on making New York more affordable for every resident by cutting the state’s highest-in-the-nation tax burden and taking other actions to lower the cost of living in this state;
● moved more responsibly and sensibly toward a cleaner energy future without ignoring affordability, feasibility, reliability, and sustainability; and
● restoring accountability and local decision making to state government in the aftermath of the rampant abuses of executive power that dominated this state throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Rescue New York” is a call for affordability, responsibility, safety, and sanity in a state whose current leaders are ignoring it.