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The deficit projections, buried in an overview of a budget that comes in $8.6 billion more than current state spending, show Hochul’s financial plan starting to unravel in two years with a $9.1 billion hole. The following year, the state will be an additional $13.9 billion in the red and another $13.4 billion the year after that.
“The increase in the gaps over the Financial Plan period (FY 2025 through FY 2027) are principally due to additional downward revisions in projected tax receipts reflected in the Enacted Budget Financial Plan,” the governor’s budget division reported. Record inflation, restrictive energy policies, and the flagging economy are expected to put an enormous load on the state’s bottom line.
“The fiscally responsible legislators in Albany have been fighting tooth and nail against the tax-and-spend policies, yet they refuse to see the dire consequences of hitting up the taxpayers for their record spending binges,” said Assemblyman Joseph DeStefano. “We’re not a bottomless pit that the state politicians can keep shoveling money out of. Hochul’s own budget office says this thing is going to start crashing down in just two short years, but Hochul and the spend-spend-spend Democrats just don’t seem to care.”
The state’s historic spending spree covers a grab bag of Hochul priorities including:
Bailing out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Providing more than $1 billion in “extraordinary funding” for migrant services.
New operating and capital aid for health care.
Expanding mental health inpatient, outpatient, and support services.
Fully funding the school district Foundation Aid program.
Increasing State University endowments.
Funding the cost for New York service providers to cover the state-mandated minimum wage increase.
Discounting electric bills for low and moderate-income customers.
Expanding free school meals.
Increasing aid for legal defense and discovery for indigent and low-income individuals.
Rent arrears assistance.
Hochul’s budget does little to relieve the burden on the highest taxed residents in the nation as New Yorkers leave the state in record numbers, the highest rate of outmigration of any state that’s sure to get worse as the budget deficits kick in.
“People are leaving in droves and the rest of us will be left holding the bag,” DeStefano said. “It’s an absolute tragedy that our kids and seniors, and practically everyone else, are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet in our once prosperous Empire State.”