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Maybe the only cure for New York’s feckless state lawmakers is to just blow up Albany.
Think about it: The state faces a staggering $18.2 billion in red ink through 2029, while sky-high taxes already have people fleeing New York.
Yet the Legislature’s plan is to spend billions more — and hike taxes on “the rich” yet again.
That’s right: Both the Dem-controlled Assembly and state Senate just put out budget proposals that add about $4 billion in brand new spending for Fiscal 2026.
That’s on top of the $9 billion Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to add.
The result would be a budget of nearly $260 billion — about as much as Greece’s entire population spends in a year. State operating funds would grow 13.7%, more than four times inflation.
Yes, the final bottom line, after negotiations between the gov and the Legislature’s drunken sailors, could be a mite lower.
And the day of reckoning might not come for a few years.
But rest assured, it’s coming: “Skyrocketing spending is cracking New York’s fiscal foundation,” screams the Citizens Budget Commission.
“The Legislature’s one-house budgets propose to add more spending and higher taxes to a precarious State budget” and fail to prepare for “potential massive federal budget cuts.”
Or for the possibility of an economic downturn.
Or to keep mass transit running.
There’s no nice way to put it: New York’s finances are drastically out of whack, and Dem lawmakers only aim to make things worse.
Just consider their plan to hike tax rates on the rich and on corporations again, even though New York and its localities already collect more taxes (per capita and per $1,000 of income) than any other state.
Do they think tax hikes will slow the exodus of the very taxpayers needed to pay the bills?
Something’s got to give.
But don’t count on Hochul to fix things.
The best New Yorkers can hope for from the gov is some token compromise that kicks the can down the road while still handing out enough goodies (e.g., her $500 one-time rebate) to help her win reelection.
Once again leaving the state’s longer-term finances in deep peril.
And when it all comes crashing down — when key taxpayers and companies have left and there’s no way to pay the bills — remember who stood by, blithely conducting business as usual.
And then ask yourself (if you still live in New York, that is), wouldn’t it have been better to just blow up Albany altogether?