Response to State of the State

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s first State of the State message echoed the themes that I have been talking about for the last two years. Cutting spending, cutting taxes, lowering property taxes, reducing the size of government and helping businesses create new private sector jobs must be the priorities.  If we can accomplish these goals, we will put New York on a path of financial recovery and restore the public’s faith in our State government.

 I applaud the Governor’s call for a State spending cap and am relieved that he continues to call for a strict property tax cap to reduce our skyrocketing property taxes.  I will continue to push hard to pair mandate relief for local governments and school districts with the caps. The Governor is creating a “Mandate Relief Design Team,” to weed out unnecessarily and costly mandates that hopefully will lead to an end to all unfunded mandates forever.

 I am renewing my pro-business proposal that includes a tax credit of up to $5,000 for every new job created, eliminates the corporate franchise tax for small businesses and manufacturers and places a moratorium on new taxes, fees and regulations that are killing private sector job-creation efforts in the State. Creating new jobs is key to reinventing our economy and I am glad the Governor is on the same page.

 Governor Cuomo sounded all the right themes—ones that I have been talking about because you told me they were your priorities – cutting spending, no new taxes, smaller government and more jobs – I look forward to working with him to get the results you deserve this year.