Pushing to Rein in Spending and Reverse New York's Policies

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, three days to the election. What the heck is going on? Well, let’s go to upstate. Let’s go to Senator George Borrello. And he’s a senator up in, well, northern New York State and a large area over there in Chautauqua County. Give us the pulse of the situation.

0:21 Speaker 2 Well, John, always great to hear you say Chautauqua County and hello from Western New York. But yeah, here we are three days out. And I can tell you that there is an energy here. You know, as the chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, you know, we feel good about our candidates, about our incumbents. But really, I

0:39 feel good that this is our opportunity to restore a little common sense and balance to our state government. I think Bruce Blakeman has done an amazing job of getting around New York State. You see his signs everywhere. in many cases in the yards of people that have no other political sign except for, for Bruce Blakeman for governor. So, uh,

0:58 I’m hopeful that, uh, in a few days, uh, we are going to see the people of New York state vote to, to pull ourselves back to the middle, uh, and to make New York state, uh, a state that has a more balanced state government and that, and that we will have a governor Bruce Blakeman.

1:12 Speaker 1 Well, it’s, it’s everything. Everything is a possibility. I think, uh, I think it’s too close to call in my opinion. And, uh, Let’s see what happens. Give us the, listen, you’re a state senator and you want checks and balances in the world.

1:29 And the state assembly, when you want checks and balances in the world, give us a pulse of what’s going on in the state senate and the state assembly.

1:39 Speaker 2 Well, you know, of course, we’re all very focused on the election right now. And there are many bills that were passed this year still sitting on the governor’s desk. And many of them are, you know, she has until the end of the year to sign or to veto or do what’s called a pocket veto where she just

1:54 doesn’t sign it and kind of leaving it in her pocket, so to speak. And look, in New York this year, not just in an election year, but in a gubernatorial election year, we saw a lot of harmful policy that was temporarily paused. The electric school bus mandate, which I’m very proud that we were able to put a five-year

2:16 extension on that. A lot of the damaging climate mandates happened. that we saw that was forcing up our electricity bills. But that pause is only temporary in many cases because it is an election year. So the people of New York City have to understand that. And so when you start talking about what’s happening in Albany and what’s happening

2:36 in the Senate and the Assembly, it all comes down to this. You know, we have no balance right now, okay? You have one party that rules everything. The Republicans lost the majority back in the 2018 election. So from 2019 to now, what have we seen happen under one-party Democrat rule? Well, we’ve seen our budget balloon from $ 170 billion to $ 277 billion,

2:54 $ 107 billion increase.

2:54 Speaker 1 In that period of time.

3:02 Speaker 2 You’ve seen our debt increase. You’ve seen crime increase because of bail reform. You know, a 26 percent increase in crime in New York state. Crime is up in almost every category. So the common-sense folks in New York State need to look at that and say that one-party rule in New York State has been a disaster. And I

3:21 hope that they understand that this election is not just about what’s going on in Washington and across the country, but it’s about what’s happening in your life every single day. And I believe that common-sense New Yorkers would vote to restore balance to the state government, and that’s really what I’m hopeful for.

3:38 Speaker 1 I understand. and any batting average on it?

3:44 Speaker 2 You know, it’s tough to say, but I will say this. If you can elect a governor, Bruce Blakeman, and the Republicans in the state Senate, which we broke the supermajority two years ago, so the Democrats, that means Democrats would not have the ability to override a veto from a governor, Bruce Blakeman, that the act of electing Bruce Blakeman and

4:03 keeping us where we are, we don’t have to go back into the majority, but just maintaining where we are and growing, would mean that there’d have to be compromise, that the Democrats would have to come to the table and negotiate, that we could maybe move away from some of these harmful policies that are often driven by people

4:19 on the far left. So I would say that I think the odds of the people of New York State understanding that are pretty good.

4:27 Speaker 1 Understood. Well, thank you so much for calling in this Sunday morning, and hopefully you’ll be celebrating by Wednesday morning. Let’s hope.