Albany, N.Y., March 13—State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C-Big Flats), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, today warned that a “one-house” budget resolution approved today by the Senate Democrat majority proposes billions of dollars in new state spending that is “unaffordable and unsustainable” and will continue to threaten state and local economies, and drive more and more New Yorkers out of the state.
O’Mara, opening debate for the Senate Republican Conference on the floor of the Senate, said that Senate Democrats are calling for spending far beyond the approximately $252-billion plan proposed by Governor Kathy Hochul in her 2025-2026 Executive Budget, which is already nearly $9 billion higher than New York’s current spending.
According to the Senate GOP finance staff, the Senate Democrat budget proposes an approximately $259-billion state budget this year or at least $7 billion higher than Hochul’s proposed budget and more than $15 billion higher than current spending. If enacted, it would mark the highest-ever state budget. According to O’Mara, Senate Democrats also project that their proposed spending plan, if enacted, would lead to a string of state budget deficits over the next three fiscal years totaling $6.5 billion in 2027, $9.8 billion in 2028, and $11 billion in 2029.
O’Mara said, “Is it affordable and is it sustainable for the citizens of New York State to continue down this road of spending? Senate Republicans warned that Governor Hochul’s out-of-control state spending plan would only skyrocket once the Legislature’s Democrat majorities, the biggest spenders in state history, got their hands on it. That’s exactly where we’re headed again under all-Democrat, one-party control. It remains irresponsible, unaffordable, unsustainable fiscal insanity. Governor Hochul’s proposed Executive Budget is a plan of misguided and misplaced priorities, but the Senate Democrats try to correct it with higher taxing and even higher spending. It doesn’t respond to the issues of affordability for everyday New York families, taxpayers, and workers. It won’t stop the exodus of New York taxpayers and employers to other states, and it risks further devastating already hard-hit state and local economies.”
The state Assembly Democrat “one-house” budget resolution calls for increasing state spending by an estimated $2 billion more than the Senate.
The Legislature’s Democrat majorities are approving their respective one-house resolutions in advance of final budget negotiations with Hochul. The one-house budgets traditionally stake out legislative priorities entering the negotiations on a final budget scheduled to be in place by April 1.
O’Mara stressed that the direction being pursued by Hochul and legislative leaders sets the stage for a final state budget this year that would significantly increase short- and long-term state government spending commitments, add billions of dollars to a state debt burden that is already one of the nation’s highest, and risk additional long-term costs for already overburdened counties and local property taxpayers.
O’Mara noted that if the proposed Senate Democrat budget were enacted it would mean that since New York State government fell under one-party, all-Democrat control in 2018, total government spending would have increased by approximately $90 billion.
O’Mara and the Senate Republican conference again warned that Hochul and the Legislature’s Democrat majorities are focusing on tax hikes and unrestrained spending instead of providing broad-based tax relief to spark job creation and economic growth, restraining state spending, tackling unfunded state mandates on localities to ease the burden on local property taxpayers, and reducing New York’s long-term debt load.
