Governor Hochul's $252 billion budget.

0:00 Speaker 1 New York State. The budget is due on Tuesday, April first, Uh is it April Fool’s Day? Well? What is today? Is the senior vice president of the New York Business Council. We have Paul Zuber and he represents thousands of thousands of businesses in New York State. Well, Paul, what do you hear?

0:24 Speaker 2 I hear April Fool’s Day? John, It looks like it looks like we’re definitely going to have a late budget. You know, I know that the Senate has the members of the Senate are being told to go home this weekend and come back next week. I hear that. You know, the Senate in the Assembly probably won’t what the conference

0:45 issues until until next week. So, you know, I think the big issues out there right now are the Governor, to her credit, is holding tough on several issues that, you know, with the concern that the public has in terms of increased crime. She she definitely wants to see changes to the discovery laws. There’s a there’s a general

1:10 feeling amongst prosecutors and law enforcement that the initial changes that were just done to the discovery laws during the criminal justice reform movement has made it more difficult for them to prosecute folks who commit crimes. So she’s holding tight on that. And the other issue that she’s holding tight on right now is involuntary confinement of you know,

1:36 individuals who are who are mentally ill. And you know, I know that everybody in New York City in particular gets nervous when they go to the subway and there’s a number of folks in there that you know, seem as if they need need help. And she wants to change some of the involuntary confinement laws to allow more options.

1:58 The Senate in the Assembly quite frankly a no on that. So you know, that’s that’s the big piece holding up the budget. But then you know, you know, we talked about this last week. I think the next big piece, the next two big pieces out there are once they saw that, is how do you fund the MTA. So

2:17 the NPA has a thirty four billion dollar hole in its five year capital plan, and so there’s discussions internally about are they going to raise taxes on businesses in New York City. I’ve heard things as as such as a maybe possible surcharge on taxicabs and ubers. There’s been a number of proposals to try to fill that gap.

2:42 You know, as far as you know, we’re concerned the Business Council. Obviously we’re posting any taxes I think, you know we are. We are the highest tax I think we ranked number forty nine in the country, being the highest tax state, I don’t think.

2:56 Speaker 1 And people are leaving, and people are leaving town because.

3:01 Speaker 2 And people are leaving town because of this, and then what that in turn does is it further hurts our economy because most of the money that is taken in by New York State is from income tax, right, So if you have less people and you have people moving out, you know, that’s that’s that’s less money for the government

3:23 to do some of the things they want to do. And from a political standpoint, you know, when we drive people out because of taxes, it hurts us politically. In d C. Already, we’re pretty certain that New York is going to lose two congressional seats.

3:39 Speaker 1 I talked to our friend Ed Cox, and he says it might be three.

3:44 Speaker 2 It could be three. And here’s you know, here’s the you’re seeing it in the states that are over tax right, So California is potentially losing three seats, and New York is potentially using two to three seats, and Rhode Island and Minnesota, and it’s all those states that have gone overboard with taxes and more regulations and what states are

4:06 potentially a gaining seats Texas, Florida. So it’s also hurting us, you know, politically. And you know, the thing with the MTA is there was just an article. You know, I suggest folks look at the New York Post today talking about the Second Avenue subway and the fact that they just approved a consultant contract for one hundred and eighty

4:27 nine million dollars. So we’re talking about an agency that’s telling us they need thirty four billion dollars to make their capital plant work. But constantly all we hear about, particularly with the seventh Second Avenue Subway, are cost overruns, cost over runs, paying consultants millions upon millions of dollars.

4:49 Now you’re going to tell us you can’t afford to fund it. So what we’re going to do is we’re gonna figure out how to tax people in New York City. It doesn’t make sense. At some point, we’ve got to take responsibility for what we’re doing. And right the ship right like there’s you know, it’s there’s cost overruns left

5:07 and right, and you know that’s something that has to get fixed, especially since we know that there will be cuts by the federal government, and the legislators are already preparing to come back probably in the fall, to redo the budget because we know that, you know New York State budget, it’s thirty seven percent of it has made

5:27 up of federal spending. So we know we’re going to have to come and fix holes there. So we also have to get a grip on our spending in New York State. Our two hundred and fifty billion dollar budget proposal is one hundred billion dollars more than it was ten years ago, one hundred billion dollars more, a.

5:47 Speaker 1 Little bit, a little bit out of control. But the other thing that we talked about in previous weeks, and I spoke about it along with at cops of the projected two hundred and sixty billion dollars state budget one hundred billion is uh, what is it Medicare or medicaid?

6:05 Speaker 2 Medicaid. It’s medicaid. It’s the biggest chunk of the budget is Medicaid. And again going back to what will likely happen on the federal side. You know, look, I’d be shocked if we don’t see Medicaid cuts on the federal side, which means, you know, we’re going to be scrambling, to be scrambling when it comes to Medicaid. We’re going to

6:26 be scrambling when it comes to education funding, right you know. So at some point we need as a state to tighten our belts and get things under control. We need to tighten our belts, not only financially, but you know, we have to do something that Governor Pataki did way back when, and we need to revitalize the Governor’s Office

6:46 of Regulatory Reform because another issue out there is all these regulations are driving people out of New York State. You know, not just New York State, California has the same problem, right Like, it’s driving people out because everything’s overregulated right now, and we need to start going in and going into these you know, agency regulations and figuring

7:07 out what needs to be relaxed and changed and made different. I mean, you know, it’s it’s frustrated. We’ve been talking to businesses all over the state and that’s the number one thing they keep mentioning to us is the frustration with dealing with New York State government, and it’s just driving people out of the state. So, you know, I think,

7:25 you know, maybe this budget is a good thing because maybe it will be a time of reflection where people decide, well, you know, it’s time to tighten our belts. It’s not everybody’s gonna be happy, but you know, we need to we need to write the ship, you know, because there’s the spending is way too, way too high. And you know,

7:42 quite honestly, I don’t necessarily know if we’re getting a bank for a buck with a lot of things. I think the MTA is a perfect example. Central we’re getting a bank for a buck with the amount of money we’re spending on it.

7:51 Speaker 1 There’s between us. I don’t think there’s any checks and balances on them.

7:59 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, I really, I really don’t. I really don’t think so either. I think sometimes we we just we don’t look, we don’t look deep enough at some of the projects that are going on. And why, in my opinion, why there’s so many cost overruns on some of these projects.

8:18 And you know, these projects start out at X billions of dollars and the next thing, you know, they’re they’re five times what they were initially you know, budgeted for, and you know, honestly, I mean obviously sometimes that’s because of the economy, changes in material costs, but other times, you know, it’s you know, change orders that are coming

8:38 in from contractors. There’s all these different things. And again, they had five years to figure out their their capital plan because it’s a five year capital plan. Now they’re coming back after the five years and saying, well, I need thirty four billion dollars to fill the hole. I mean, if we’re like an everyday person, like we have to

8:56 balance our checkbooks, right, Like, how can the mp ain’t not balanced their checks book books?

9:02 Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, well we’re at a time. But the bottom line is, there’s no budget that’s going to pass April first, in your opinion, there’s.

9:11 Speaker 2 No budget that’s going to pass unless there’s unless there’s a miracle from above, there’s no budget that’s going to pass April first. Let’s hope that is only a week late, but right now it looks like it’s going to be late.

9:22 Speaker 1 Well, let’s let’s hope that the governor, uh, stay steady and hang it’s tough until she gets the right deal.

9:32 Speaker 2 Yes, hopefully she does stay tough and get the right deal. And you know, and there’s a lot of issues out there that hopefully, you know, we land on the side of common sense, uh and you know, do what’s right for the for New York, New Yorkers throughout the state.

9:47 Speaker 1 Thank you so much, thank you,