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ALBANY, NY (WNY News Now) — New York State Republican leaders revealed a plan this week to create “A More Affordable New York” in response to what they call a “fiscally irresponsible state budget proposal” by Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democratic legislature.
Senator George Borrello, along with his Republican colleagues, say that they have solutions to make New York State a more affordable place to live.
“Our colleagues across the aisle last year when they were voting themselves a raise said, we have to increase the pay because the state’s not affordable. And apparently they forgot that they are a part of the reason why New York State is so unaffordable,” says Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt.
The Republicans say migration out of New York is the state’s biggest threat. Losing human capital leads to loss of future employees, business owners, and taxpayers, according to the conference.
Several Executive Budget proposals were refuted by the group.
“Eliminating the enhanced Medicaid payments to local governments, which would create enormous pressure to increase local property taxes. This is gonna have an absolutely horrendous impact, it’s gonna blow holes in almost every county budget out there,” says Ortt.
Senator Ortt also listed increasing unemployment insurance taxes on struggling small businesses and farms, increasing payroll taxes in the MTA region, and using state funding for immigration in NYC.
“While seniors on fixed incomes worry about their heating bills, they’re moving to ban fossil fuel hookups to new and existing buildings and drive utility costs up even further,” says Ortt.
Under the, “A More Affordable New York” initiative, Republicans say they will eliminate costly unfunded mandates that drive up local property taxes, repealing Congestion Pricing, and providing relief from heating costs geared toward the middle class.
Senator George Borrello believes that bad state policy is driving small business owners and farmers into financial ruin. According to State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the investigation into the deficit found fraud, despite a lack of cooperation from the Department of Labor.
“Unemployment insurance fund has been in a huge deficit, a multi-billion dollar deficit, and as a business owner, every business owner in NYS, small businesses, farmer, we get bills. The bill says, your account has been drained and you owe more money,” says Borrello.
The Republicans say they have a plan to fix this issue, and hopefully attract more business to the state.
“Protect businesses from unemployment insurance tax hikes by creating an Unemployment Insurance Solvency Reserve Fund and repealing the interest assessment surcharge, which is the assessment on businesses to pay back the UI Trust Fund’s deficit which the state of New York could do something about like 33 other states have,” says Ortt.
The state budget must be approved by April 1.
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