O'Mara critical of New York's late state budget and 'broken budget adoption process' (WATCH)

Albany, N.Y., May 1—State Senator Tom O’Mara (R-C, Big Flats), Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee, today strongly criticized Governor Kathy Hochul and the Legislature’s Democrat majorities for enacting a state budget that ignores the need for public review and will make New York “even more unaffordable for taxpayers and even more expensive for farmers, small businesses, manufacturers and all businesses to survive, expand, and create the good jobs that New York’s workers and their families desperately need.”  

In debate on the floor of the state Senate this afternoon, O’Mara blasted Hochul and Senate Democrats for utilizing “messages of necessity” to bypass the constitutionally required three-day waiting period to vote on legislation.

The Senate began voting on budget legislation today that was introduced just yesterday leaving individual legislators and the public little time to review and comment on a final state budget, the most expensive state fiscal plan ever enacted, that will end up totaling nearly $230 billion.

In a statement, O’Mara said:

“Under one-party, all-Democrat control, New York State will once again remain the nation’s leader in bloated, irresponsible, irrational, and unsustainable spending for taxpayers, employers, families, workers, and every local economy. It will make this state even more unaffordable for taxpayers and even more expensive for farmers, small businesses, manufacturers, and many others to survive, expand, and create the good jobs that New York’s workers and their families desperately need and deserve.

“The enactment of a new state budget is the most impactful action that state legislators take every year. It reaches into the pockets and the everyday lives of all New Yorkers. That will be especially true this year when this new state budget pushes state spending to its highest level ever and, at the same time, includes far-reaching, non-budget-related policy initiatives that many good government groups believe should not even be considered as part of the budget adoption process.

“Negotiations go on entirely behind closed doors. In this era of complete one-party control of state government, there is an unprecedented lack of legislative checks and balances. The public is kept in the dark like never before. We still don’t know with any specificity exactly how Governor Hochul and legislative Democrats intend to carry it all out – or, for that matter, what surprises are still in store.

“It's a broken process that keeps producing bloated state budgets that taxpayers will never be able to afford and that will continue to drive this state into the ground.”

[Watch Senator O'Mara's debate remarks on the floor of the State Senate earlier today HERE.]