Statement by Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos

By increasing spending with no way to pay for it, Democrats have created an unbalanced budget that includes no relief for property taxpayers and continues to cut the STAR property tax relief program by millions of dollars.  

This budget does nothing to create jobs.  In fact, Democrats voted to eliminate half a billion dollars in job creation tax credits that will jeopardize thousands of jobs, especially upstate.

After raising taxes by more than $10 billion last year, Democrats are adding billions more in tax and fee hikes this year.  This disastrous budget will hurt every business, every family and every taxpayer in this state.

The budget taxes too much and spends too much. How much? Even the Democrat Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Carl Kruger, had no idea about the exact size of the budget when it was voted on.  Despite this, every Democrat voted for the budget and every taxpayer should be as outraged as we are.  

After a tortured budget process where they violated the budget reform law, negotiated in total secrecy, excluded Republicans from the process and rejected every alternative we offered to reduce spending, Senator Sampson and Speaker Silver took matters into their own hands and created an irresponsible, unbalanced budget that Senate Republicans unanimously opposed.  

They should not expect or count on Senate Republicans to bail them out of the mess that they have made of this budget and the damage they are inflicting on taxpayers.

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