May 28, 2026
FROM STATE SENATOR TOM O’MARA: , “New York State taxpayers today and long into the future already face trying to afford, live, and work under a bloated, wasteful, and unaffordable state government. New York is already one of the highest taxed, heavily mandated, overregulated, and least affordable states in America. This budget makes it worse. It increases spending by at least fourteen billion dollars but fails to include a shred of meaningful tax relief, mandate relief, debt relief, or spending restraint. It fails to address key priorities in energy policy, health care, public safety, and so many other fundamentally important areas. It ignores the economic and fiscal warnings on the horizon and keeps on increasing government spending like there’s nothing to worry about tomorrow. O’Mara pointed to a statewide poll earlier this month from the Siena Research Institute showing that more than 70 percent of respondents believed the state’s fiscal condition is fair or poor. The survey also found 75% of respondents reporting that the cost of utilities was having a “serious impact on their financial condition.” Fifty-one percent said their bills for heating and electricity are unaffordable, with nearly 30 percent admitting that they have been forced to borrow money or take on debt to cover utility costs. This budget acts like New York taxpayers and families shouldn’t have a care in the world in the face of the worst affordability crisis they have ever faced. It’s a budget built on bailouts and giveaways to special interests and favored constituencies that everyday taxpayers will never be able to afford. It ignores the ratepayers who can’t afford their unrelenting utility bills and instead tries to buy off the wrath of these ratepayers by giving them back pennies in so-called ‘energy rebates’ after the state has already collected billions from these same ratepayers through surcharges on their monthly utility bills for years on end. It’s offensive to ratepayers. They shouldn’t stand for it, and I don’t believe they will.
“This budget ignores homeowners and seniors still struggling to make ends meet in a state with one of the heaviest property tax burdens in America. It refuses to take any meaningful action to rein in the nation’s highest per-capita Medicaid spending under a system that allows unchecked abuse, fraud, and waste. It acts like the need to cut taxes, eliminate unfunded mandates, restrain overregulation, reduce debt and control borrowing, make this state more economically competitive, and other commonsense fiscal and economic practices will never again be priorities in this state. In fact, in the highest-taxed state in America, Albany Democrats once again in this budget don’t hesitate to hike taxes and fees in the desperate hope that taxing more will always be the answer to spending more. It’s been a disaster for the past seven years. It’s a disaster now. It’s going to be a disaster for a generation of middle-income, hard-working New York taxpayers, families, and business owners. For the past seven years under one-party, all-Democrat control, New York’s taxpayers, families, and job creators have been sending the message that this state is on the wrong track and that they can no longer afford to live, work, raise a family, or start a small business here. And for the past seven years, as the affordability crisis has increasingly worsened for most New Yorkers, Albany Democrats have said, ‘We don’t care.’”
O’Mara also strongly criticized the state’s budget adoption process that has produced a string of late state budgets and continues to allow the use of “messages of necessity” to rush through votes on final budget legislation. He said the existing process prevents individual legislators, and the public, from having adequate time to review and debate budget legislation before it’s voted on and enacted. It’s time to bring this state’s budget adoption process into the modern day, especially at this time when one-party control keeps on producing skyrocketing state spending plans that are increasingly chock-full of policy initiatives that should, for accountability’s sake, be given stand-alone consideration. Fundamental checks and balances have effectively been thrown out in this state government. Governor Hochul and the Legislature’s Democrat majorities go on working behind closed doors to allocate state taxpayer dollars and set in motion far-reaching public policies impacting our local citizens, communities, and economies in consequential ways. The state budget demands a full public airing and the appropriate time for review and debate, but that’s never what we get. It’s a broken process that blindfolds the public and keeps producing bloated state budgets that taxpayers will never be able to afford.”
FROM ASSEMBLYMAN JOE SEMPOLINSKI: Calling it irresponsible, Assemblyman Joe Sempolinski voted “No” on New York’s $268 billion state budget. The budget is a $13.7 billion increase over last year’s spending plan. Negotiated by the governor and the leadership of the Assembly and Senate Democrat majority, the budget, due April 1, was finally adopted on Wednesday, eight weeks late. Stopping the exodus of people and businesses from New York begins with responsible, common-sense budgets that cut spending and taxes. That’s what I’ve been fighting and that’s why I voted ‘No’ on this budget. The governor and Albany Democrats have given us another record-breaking budget of more than a quarter trillion dollars that will increase the burden on New York’s hard-working taxpayers,” Assemblyman Sempolinski said. He noted that New York spends almost as much as Texas and Florida combined, two states with higher populations, and two states that New Yorkers are fleeing to escape the state’s high cost of living. New York has a population of 20 million. In contrast, Florida has 23.5 million people and an annual budget of $114.7 billion. Texas has a population of 31.3 million and an annual budget of $169 billion. I believe government should be judged by results, not intentions. The governor and Albany Democrats like to talk about making life more affordable for New Yorkers. This budget won’t do that,” Assemblyman Sempolinski said.
FROM STATE SENATOR GEORGE BORRELLO: “This budget is more than two months late and stands as another example of the dysfunction, incompetence and special interest-driven politics that define one-party rule in Albany. At $268 billion — $14 billion more than the current budget and more than $100 billion higher than state spending before Democrats took full control in 2019 — this budget continues Albany’s dangerous pattern of reckless spending, making New York increasingly unaffordable for families, businesses and taxpayers. This budget includes new taxes, extends so-called ‘temporary’ tax hikes on business and sends nearly $8 billion in bailout money to New York City while upstate communities fight to keep hospitals and nursing homes open and hold the line on property taxes. Albany continues rewarding fiscal irresponsibility instead of demanding accountability. At the same time, Medicaid spending has exploded to $122.6 billion, an 89 percent increase since 2019 despite declining enrollment, and now consumes nearly half of the entire state budget. It is a runaway train that demands urgent attention. Republicans have repeatedly called for an independent audit to root out the waste, fraud and abuse that we already know is draining billions of taxpayer dollars away from the truly vulnerable populations this program was intended to serve. I brought forward exactly that amendment during passage of the health care spending portion of this budget, and for the second time this session, majority Democrats voted it down. At a time when taxpayers are stretched to the breaking point, that is indefensible. I am glad the budget includes changes that will slow down some of the most unworkable parts of the Climate Act and provide New Yorkers temporary relief from mandates that are driving up costs and threatening energy reliability. Revised emissions targets, delayed cap-and-invest regulations and a five-year pause on the disastrous electric school bus mandate would never have happened without relentless Republican pressure exposing the failures and unrealistic timelines embedded in the Climate Act. While these changes are welcome, they are not a fix; they are a delay of mandates that will re-emerge to threaten affordability, grid reliability and economic competitiveness unless further action is taken. I support the Tier 6 changes included in the budget because we need to improve recruitment and retention for critical public sector positions. However, Albany cannot continue expanding benefits while pushing the added financial burden onto local governments and property taxpayers who are already at the breaking point. If the state mandates these costs, the state should help pay for them. This budget is a monument to everything that is wrong with one-party rule in New York: runaway spending, higher taxes, election year gimmicks and a steady drift toward the kind of tax-and-spend socialism that has never made any state or nation more prosperous. When one party controls everything and answers no one, fiscal discipline disappears and taxpayers are left paying the price for political failure. If New York has any hope of reversing course and becoming affordable, competitive and economically strong again, it will require a different direction and different leaders who are genuinely working in the best interests of the people they represent.”
