DIPIETRO: New York is broke

BY DAVID DIPIETRO

So here we are everyone, the end of the 2019 calendar year and we’re getting ready for the holidays. Setting up decorations, meeting with loved ones and buying presents, and boy have we got one monster of a present from Gov. Cuomo and the Democrats, a $6.6 billion budget deficit.

Yup, you read that right, billion. It has been reported for a while now that our budget process is pants-on-head backwards. But you already know what the usual answer is from Speaker Carl Heastie himself, ‘For us in the Assembly, we always believe in raising revenue.’ That means raising taxes on you and your family! I’ll tell you right now he may be the Speaker, but that answer doesn’t speak for me.

This isn’t even a one-time thing my friends, this is going to get worse every year down the road. Spending is out of control and it’s not going to fix the pothole on your road. It’s not even going to your children’s schools to provide them a better education, it’s being swallowed by a bloated Medicaid budget, Gov. Cuomo’s pet projects, like the so called ‘Mario M. Cuomo’ bridge, and New York City subway budget fights.

Western New York is left in the dust and told to pick up the bill. It’s why movements like Split the State are picking up steam all across Upstate and not just here at home. We need to band together and tell these downstaters that you can’t just take our tax dollars and tell us to sit down and be quiet. If we had our way, the Safe Act would be repealed, we wouldn’t be floating bribes to Hollywood billionaires and you’d be free to practice your way of life as you see fit.

But no, they’re going to try to tax us all the more come next budget cycle to one, cover this $6.6 BILLION dollar hole from last year to try to stop it from growing, and two, fill the coffers for either single-payer healthcare, Safe Act 2.0 or giving refugees apartments, who knows? The bottom line is, the Democrats had control of both houses of the Legislature this year and spending is out of control, and in 2020 they’re going for broke while we’re left with the bill.

Assemblyman David DiPietro represents the 147^th Assembly District, which covers all of Wyoming County and the southern portion of Erie County.