Senate Over-rides Vetoes

State Senator James L. Seward commented on the state senate’s over-rides of most of the governor’s vetoes:

"The legislature adopted a budget on-time that included property tax relief, funding for colleges, tuition help for struggling middle class families, tax cuts for married couples and health care.

"New Yorkers pay the highest taxes in the country and they deserve a break. Our priority in the budget was to ensure that no one pays a penny more in taxes - and I stopped more than $500 million in new taxes and fees proposed by the governor and fought for $4.1 billion in tax relief that would put more money in the pockets of hardworking New Yorkers because it’s their money, not the government’s.

"The governor vetoed all the tax cuts - more than $4 billion worth of relief for working families across the state.

"When the state is running a surplus, and people are having trouble affording their property taxes and a tank of gasoline, we can’t cry poverty and hoard tax dollars in Albany that belong to the hardworking, overburdened taxpayers of this state. The surplus means we took too much from taxpayers, and we have to give it back in tax rebates and other relief. Let me be clear: we will fight and fight hard to return the surplus to those who work so hard to earn it.

"So the senate took action to make sure that our tax cuts and smart spending are enacted into law by over-riding his vetoes.

"We have to put families first, and that’s what our over-rides did."
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