It took Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers an extra month to agree on this fiasco?
Legislative leaders and the gov sealed a budget deal Monday, nearly a month after the deadline.
Yet the plan — with its mind-blowing $254 billion price tag, $15 billion more than last year — risks fiscal disaster within just months.
It makes zero provision for cuts in federal aid that are clearly coming, nor does it prepare for a possible slip in tax revenue should the economy slow.
Instead, the state — which already boasts the highest tax burden in America — will hike taxes yet again, this time via a $1.4 billion-a-year payroll surcharge that will slam workers and consumers.
So much for Hochul’s “affordability agenda.”
And no, the gov’s one-time “refunds” for roughly 8 million lower-income New Yorkers ($200 for singles, $400 for married couples) don’t make for affordability: They’re naked “re-elect me” bribes.
Meanwhile, the deal bakes in huge budget shortfalls for coming years.
And, again, almost certainly for this year: Hochul and the Legislature’s leaders “plan” for dealing with federal cuts is to . . . head back to Albany in a few months to (most likely) impose new taxes that they’ll surely blame on President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress.
“The month-late state general budget agreement fails to address the imminent threat facing New York: looming federal budget cuts,” thundered the Citizens Budget Commission head Andrew Rein.
“Instead of shoring up the state’s fiscal foundation, lawmakers are dramatically increasing spending the state cannot afford in the long run.”
Yes, Hochul’s aides say the gov got almost everything she sought in her bid to fix the discovery laws (which govern evidence-gathering in criminal cases) and to expand involuntary commitment of the mentally ill.
They say the tweaks to discovery, for example, will make it harder for defense attorneys to get judges to toss out cases on absurd technicalities; let’s hope the fine print of the actual bills bears that out.
Meanwhile, her proposed ban on public masking got watered down to a triviality, and thus almost an invitation for masked goons who terrorize Jews and shut down campuses to keep it up.
Mainly, New York’s “leaders” agreed to up both spending and taxing — and to kick the hard questions a month or three down the road.
No wonder so many taxpayers keep moving out of state.
