With just over one week to go before the start of the
state’s new fiscal year on April 1, State Senator Tom O’Mara (R-C-I, Big Flats) urged Governor
Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat majorities of the state Senate and Assembly to
not enact a new 2020-2021 New York State budget that he says is stocked with
public policies that don’t belong in the state’s new fiscal plan. “There’s an old, jaded saying that politicians never let a
crisis go to waste. I hope that Governor
Cuomo and the downstate Democrat legislative leaders won’t give that saying new
life during a crisis the likes of which New York State has never faced,” said
O’Mara.During what has
become a daily briefing on New York’s response to the coronavirus, Cuomo said
that he wants to enact a new state budget before the April 1 deadline that
includes policy initiatives, including changes to the state’s controversial
No-Bail law and the legalization of recreational marijuana. O’Mara warned that
the governor and downstate Democrat leaders could be eyeing the new state
budget as a way to enact controversial, non-budget-related actions that should
be more fully discussed outside the budget adoption process and on their own
merits.
