January 16, 2024
FROM ASSEMBLYMAN PHIL PALMESANO:
“The largest state budget ever, $233 billion, is what Gov. Hochul has proposed in her executive budget presentation. This appears to be yet another budget filled with bloated spending and misplaced priorities. New York is facing immense economic challenges. We must address a budget deficit of $4.3 billion this year and more than $21 billion over the next three years. Families and small businesses have to make difficult budget choices every day. New York state government must do the same and we simply cannot continue down this reckless path of unsustainable and out-of-control spending. My colleagues and the governor must remember this is the taxpayers’ money, not their money.
“Gov. Hochul constantly says she wants to make New York more affordable, yet under one-party Democrat rule our state budget has ballooned by a staggering 40% or $60 billion since 2019. This unprecedented level of spending will hurt families, small businesses and the economy in New York, making it harder to run a business and make ends meet for families. It is abundantly clear we cannot continue down this dangerous spending path and we must cut and control our spending and be careful stewards with the taxpayer dollars we spend.
“Unfortunately, once again, the governor is proposing to close up to five prisons in New York state, all with only a 90-day notice to employees, families and local communities. This is not only devastating to these impacted families and communities, but it is a tremendous insult to those dedicated correction officers and staff who work a very dangerous job to keep us safe. This, all while this administration continues its failure to address the rising and violent inmate-on-staff assaults happening inside our correctional facilities today. In addition, the administration has not just eliminated or restricted the use of important disciplinary tools to segregate the most disruptive, violent and dangerous inmates, but they continue to refuse to provide our correction officers with the adequate staffing, tools and resources they need to be safe. Their answer is to jam more violent inmates into fewer facilities. This is a dangerous plan and will just lead to even more violence inside our correctional facilities, putting our brave and dedicated correction officers and staff at greater risk.
“While the governor continues to say she supports critical transportation infrastructure investments, her budget tells a different story. Although her budget supports downstate funding for MTA operations and infrastructure, her budget includes a devastating $60 million cut to the important and successful Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS), which provides critical funding to local municipalities to help improve their local roads, bridges and culverts. This $60 million cut is totally unacceptable and will especially hurt upstate communities and local property taxpayers the most, and it must be rejected.
“The governor’s budget prioritizes more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds to support migrants illegally coming to New York and also the Hollywood elite by continuing the costly, unacceptable and misplaced Hollywood Film Tax credit. This, while our most vulnerable citizens like the intellectually and developmentally disabled and the dedicated direct support professionals who provide their vital quality-of-life care continue to be a small blip on the radar screen of this administration.
“In addition, although the governor continues to claim she wants to address the affordability crisis in New York, she and the radical progressives in the Legislature keep insisting on pushing an unaffordable and unreliable energy plan of full electrification on New Yorkers. Their plan will take away consumer choice for how people heat their homes, cook their food, dry their clothes, power their buildings and the vehicles they drive. These types of costly mandates will hurt seniors, families, farmers, small businesses and manufacturers, leading to blackouts and jeopardizing the reliability of the grid, while resulting in even more people and businesses leaving the state.
“We have some of the highest taxes in the country and a rising cost of living, which has all contributed to New York leading the entire nation in outmigration, more than 500,000 since 2020. This is untenable if we want New York to be a great place to work and raise a family.
“I will continue to advocate for common-sense policies that prioritize public safety, crime victims and law enforcement over criminals; fiscal responsibility; lower taxes and regulations to help spur job creation and economic development; an energy policy that understands and addresses the importance of affordability and reliability, and not just “so-called” green energy; an equitable transportation infrastructure plan that invests in our local upstate roads and bridges, and not just the downstate MTA; and the care of our most vulnerable New Yorkers, the intellectually and developmentally disabled, and not just migrants here illegally and the downstate elite.”
FROM STATE SENATOR TOM O’MARA:
State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C-Big Flats), Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee, today said that Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2024-2025 state budget calls for another record-breaking, $233-billion state spending plan that “downplays the fiscal realities facing this state, ignores the burdens being shouldered by middle-class taxpayers, and refuses to take the steps needed to address affordability.”
O’Mara said, “It remains mind boggling. This state already faces multi-billion-dollar deficits far into the future because the Albany Democrats can’t stop spending and Governor Hochul still proposes a spend, spend, spend strategy. The Albany Democrat appetite for spending over the past several years has been a one-party smorgasbord gobbling up billions of taxpayer dollars. It’s been uncontrolled spending to the point that having put in place massive, long-term spending commitments — and with massive commitments looming in the Democrats’ pursuit of a radical climate agenda and the provision of untold services to an ever-surging migrant population — New York State taxpayers already face multi-year, multi-billion-dollar deficits. It ignores the reality that New York remains one of America’s highest-taxed, least- affordable, most debt-ridden, and overregulated states that leads the nation in population loss. There’s nothing in this plan that seriously addresses the need for lower taxes across the board, less regulation, debt reduction, mandate relief, or any of the other strangleholds on state and local taxpayers, small businesses and manufacturers, and continually hard-pressed upstate communities, economies, and workers.”
Like he did following Hochul’s State of the State message last week, O’Mara warned that the state’s Democrat leaders, like they have for the past several years while increasing state spending by $60 billion, are once again eyeing even more long-term commitments for higher spending. Last year’s final $229-billion spending plan left New York with the nation’s second-highest state budget, behind only California.
O’Mara predicted that Hochul and the Democrat-controlled Senate and Assembly will enact a final budget that significantly increases New York’s spending again this year – including a starting point of an additional $2 billion to address a surging migrant crisis statewide — and leave state and local taxpayers shouldering a long-term, unsustainable burden.
He stressed that the governor’s proposed executive budget already calls for increasing the current state budget by more than $4 billion even before final negotiations with the “biggest-spending Legislature in state history.”
The governor’s fiscal plan admits that the state continues to face multi-year, multi-billion-dollar budget deficits, including $5 billion next year, $5.2 billion the following year, and nearly $10 billion by 2027.
O’Mara said that joint Senate-Assembly budget hearings are scheduled to begin next week.
FROM SENATOR GEORGE BORRELLO:
“While we will be delving into the details of Governor Hochul’s $233 billion spending plan in the coming days, my first reaction is that it’s a missed opportunity to tackle New York’s biggest problems and put us on a stronger course for the future.
There is nothing in here that will slow or stop New York’s worst-in-the-nation outmigration of residents, such as income or property tax cuts. There is an alarming proposal to close five prisons, which will exacerbate the crime crisis. There is a threat of our rural schools losing crucial aid. And there is a proposal to plant thousands of trees at taxpayer expense even as thousands of mature trees are cut down as part of the state’s green energy boondoggle.
Most concerning is the allocation of $2.4 billion in funding for Democrat’s self-created migrant crisis, which has already consumed $2 billion in taxpayer funds over the past year. Governor Hochul’s budget remarks cast our state as an innocent victim in this catastrophe. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sanctuary policies put in place by Democrats are the defacto ‘welcome mat’ that has encouraged this influx. Allowing these policies to stay in place and expecting hardworking New York taxpayers to simply pay the bill is shameful and another reason for people to leave.
New York State is at a crossroads. If we are to reverse New York’s downward spiral, we need a major change in priorities. As this process moves forward, my colleagues and I will be advocating for our rural and suburban communities and advancing proposals to put our state back on the right track.”
