Albany’s Spending Spree Is Pricing New Yorkers Out

0:00 Speaker 1 Let’s go up to the state, the state business people. Paul Zuber, he’s the executive vice president of the Business Council of New York State. And we’ve got nine days to the election. We want to get the pulse of the situation. Well, Paul Zuber, give us the pulse of the situation.

0:17 Speaker 2 Well, the pulse of the situation, John, is, you know, once again, we’re coming up on election season. And what I kind of find funny is all these people, elected officials are talking about affordability, affordability, affordability. It’s the number one issue for consumers. And the question that I have for some of these elected officials is, when are you

0:38 going to actually do something about affordability? And I think that’s why people in New York State are just irate and people in the country are irate. You know, I hear a lot about energy costs and how much your energy bill is. But what a lot of the people listening don’t understand is in your energy bill, in your

0:57 electricity bill is a whole bunch of mandates that the legislature has put on your bill. Like you’re paying for renewable energy. You’re paying for new, you know, telephone poles. You’re paying for at least 10 to 15 different things that are put in your energy bill that are driving your energy costs up. And these are all things that

1:19 have been put on by elected officials, but it seems that nobody actually wants to fix that. Nobody.

1:25 Speaker 2 So you constantly have this conversation over and over again about affordability, and we’re seeing it in all these commercials. But my question is, when is someone going to do something about it? We know that natural gas.

1:36 Speaker 1 Me and you are friends for a long time, and we worry about the same thing. You know, we have a lot of businesses upstate. We have businesses downstate, and we don’t want the exodus to continue. And that’s what we’re worried about. You know, downstate with the congestion pricing, which I don’t think they’re– how do you say they’re

1:59 collecting bupkis amount of money? And the amount of stores that are empty, if you go up and down the avenues, is tremendous.

2:09 Speaker 3 And it’s hurt. It’s hurt Gustino.

2:12 Speaker 1 It’s hurt Gustino, who are companies downstate. And upstate, I think that you’re having an exodus, too. But you know upstate better than I do. I mean, the cost of electricity by closing down Indian Point and then putting those stupid windmills up that end up increasing the cost of electricity 300%, 400% is no damn good.

2:42 Speaker 2 It is no damn good, John. And it’s constant talk up here. Everybody talks, talks, talks. To your point, Indian Point, they took Indian Point offline. So now what do you have? You have an energy crisis down in New York City, right?

2:55 Because we don’t have reliable energy. But nobody wants to build pipelines because for some reason, you know, natural gas is so horrible and no one wants to build pipelines. But let’s be honest, we’d we have a limited supply of natural gas coming into New York State, which drives up the cost of natural gas. So in the end,

3:13 the consumer keeps biting, taking it on the chin because our elected officials aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing when it comes to affordability. To your point, people are leaving the state. They’re voting by walking, right? And so the more we lose people The less tax revenue comes in, the less money that is available to do

3:35 some of the things that a lot of these elected officials want to do. But they constantly don’t want to address the difficult issues. And I think that is a major problem. Instead, they pass these bills or they propose these bills. that are only going to drive business out of New York State. You got one that just got

3:55 proposed in the city council, which is going to lead to lawsuit after lawsuit against small businesses. It’s called the Power Act. It gives trial lawyers the ability to sue small businesses, even if there’s no economic harm. It is a bad bill. It is this constant influx of legislation that That is constantly driving people out. You know, John,

4:18 I actually had a call from one of the listeners who connected me at the business council, and he had a long conversation with me because he’s trying to decide whether or not he wants to stay in New York.

4:27 He loves New York. But he’s like, it’s unaffordable. And, you know, our elected officials need to step up, and they’re not stepping up. It’s constantly, constantly doing things that aren’t changing the game for consumers. Understood.

4:45 Speaker 1 And the other thing people have to realize, and Paul Zuber, you’re an expert, you realize it. You have 19.5 million people in New York, and you have 24 million people in Florida, and the budget for Florida for the whole state is $ 125 billion, and the budget for New York City and New York State is $ 400 billion.

5:10 Speaker 3 How does that make sense?

5:12 Speaker 2 Well, I always say this to folks. We actually don’t have a revenue problem in New York State. We have a spending problem in New York State. Our budget has gone up by well over $ 100 billion in 10 years.

5:23 $ 100 billion. And what have we bought for it? You know, we spend more on education than any other state. Come on, let’s be honest. Are education numbers that incredible that makes you say, well, we’ve really spent that money well? We’ve wasted money and consistently waste money in New York State.

5:43 And now we’re coming to a point where, God forbid, you know, the AI bubble bursts or God forbid something happens in the in the stock market. We’re going to be in a lot of trouble. But we keep spending and spending and spending. And the only people that get hit on the chin are the people listening to the

6:01 show right now are the voters, because somehow it gets passed down to them and they’re ending up footing the bill. And that’s why they’re leaving the state.

6:11 Speaker 3 Well, Paul Zuber, let’s talk during the week.

6:15 Speaker 1 And we have next weekend to talk, too, because the election is the Tuesday after.

6:20 Speaker 3 And God bless you and God bless America.

6:24 Speaker 2 Thank you, John.