New York Taxes and Spending Are Driving the State’s Exodus

0:00 Speaker 1 Calling in today is Senator George Borrello, New York State Senator with Common Sense from Chautauqua County. And, well, Senator, I mean, there’s so many things happening. Where do you want to start?

0:16 Speaker 2 Well, John, first of all, whether it’s Chautauqua County or whether it’s New York City or anywhere in between, we’re realizing now how much New York State overtaxes its citizens. In fact, the nonpartisan watchdog group, the Citizens Budget Commission, just found that New York State local governments collecting on average about $ 12, 500 per person per year, which is the

0:39 highest in the nation. It’s even 22% higher than the state of California, which has a reputation for being high in taxes. So when, whether it’s Governor Hochul or it’s Zoram Amdani talk about taxing the rich, we’re taxing everyone and well beyond any other state in the nation. And it’s why we lead the nation in out-migration. More people

0:58 leave New York State for places like New Jersey, not just Florida and Texas, but New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which are the top two states that people leave New York for. We need to have change. We need to put more money into people’s pockets and less into this massive government overspending machine.

1:16 Speaker 1 And tell us, there’s so many problems. You know, I love New York City. I love New York State. I love us. You know, I’ve lived here all my life. What can we do to fix things? Where is the common sense? You are in the state Senate. And how is the state Senate going? Because you have checks and

1:40 balances if you have the right numbers.

1:43 Speaker 2 Well, that’s really what it’s about. If you have looked, you know, the last time we had divided government, balanced government, when the Republicans were in charge in the New York State Senate, which ended at the beginning of 2019, is the last time we saw, quite frankly, responsible spending. Since then, the budget back then was about $ 170 billion with a B. Now,

2:01 fast forward here, basically... seven budget cycles, and it’s $ 277 billion. So you went from $ 170 to $ 277 billion under one party Democrat rule. And in that period of time, we’ve also had a huge increase in fraud and abuse, particularly in Medicaid. Medicaid now consumes about half of New York State’s budget, and there’s been no appetite to actually address

2:29 the fraud, waste, and abuse. And this is what common sense folks like Tom DiNapoli, who’s a fellow Democrat, has said about the fraud, waste, and abuse in programs like Medicaid. So this is not about we don’t tax enough and we have to tax more. This is about New York State spending too much and not addressing the wastefulness in

2:49 those programs like Medicaid.

2:51 Speaker 1 You know, we’ve talked about Medicaid before. And, you know, we talked about that Florida was like $ 25 billion that has more people than New York. And how did we get to $ 125 billion in New York?

3:06 Speaker 2 Well, again, because we’ve allowed these programs to grow out of control. First and foremost, we don’t address the fraudulent part of Medicaid. And I’m not just talking about people that aren’t eligible that are on Medicaid. That’s certainly a big part of it. But I’m talking about the billions of dollars in fraudulent billing that just isn’t real. You

3:26 have providers that are billing for services that they’re not providing. We saw recently an exposure of a program in Queens where a group has billed over $ 200 million for what was supposed to be senior dayhab programs. That was a total fraud. There were something like 77... senior day have programs in like a two-mile radius in Queens, most of

3:52 which were fraudulent. And yet we have an attorney general here in New York State that rates last 50th out of 50 for convicting people of Medicaid fraud. So it’s a perfect storm of fraud, waste, and abuse that has resulted in New York State taxing its citizens more than any other state in the nation. So we have to

4:14 draw that line, that common sense line between waste, fraud, and abuse and the fact that we overtax our citizens, which is driving businesses and families out of New York State at a record pace.

4:24 Speaker 1 No, it’s very, very sad. Is there anybody doing any checks and balances at all?

4:33 Speaker 2 Well, look, we try to call this out in the New York State Senate, in particular in the Republican Conference. We’ve called out the fraud, waste, and abuse. Like I said, we’ve even had bipartisan support from Tom DiNapoli. And there are others that have called this out. But you need to have the political will to not just call it out,

4:51 but for people to actually take action. And that’s where we need a change in leadership. particularly at the executive level. We need a strong executive branch that is willing to root out the fraud, waste, and abuse. And you have a federal government right now that’s basically saying, we’re not going to fund this anymore. You know, my Democrat colleagues

5:09 and Governor Hochul are wringing their hands over federal cuts, but what the federal government is saying is we’re no longer going to borrow money to fund your fraudulent programs in New York State. That’s coming to an end. So now it comes down to what are we going to do?

5:22 Are we going to root out the fraud, waste, and abuse, or are you going to cut legitimate claims out? Are you going to kick people off of programs like Medicaid that truly deserve it and need it because you’re unwilling to address the fraud in the program? That’s where we are in New York State now, and it’s very concerning.

5:38 Speaker 1 Understood. Anything else you want to tell all New Yorkers and all American people?

5:44 Speaker 2 Well, we’re getting down to the wire here in this election cycle, John, and it’s time for New Yorkers to wake up and vote for a change in leadership. Right now, all I see is people throwing bombs about Trump, but at the end of the day, your quality of life every day is really impacted more by what happens in

6:01 Albany than Washington, D.C. Vote accordingly.

6:05 Speaker 1 I agree with you. And Senator George Borrello, let’s pray for common sense to prevail. Amen.