ALBANY – With a multibillion-dollar budget gap in the state’s finances, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Wednesday lashed out at congressional negotiators who are considering a new federal stimulus bailout measure without a provision to send money to deficit-ridden state and local governments across the country.
“It’s madness. Hyper-political. Parochialism. Madness," Cuomo said of one federal funding plan under consideration in Washington.
Indeed, Cuomo – who has been banking on some major federal bailout funding for the state government since shortly after the current budget was OK'd last April – was already pivoting away from reliance on major relief anytime soon from the federal government.
“I believe President Biden will correct the situation," the Democratic governor said of the Democratic president-elect who takes office Jan. 20. A number of the nation’s governors had a phone conference date with Biden Wednesday afternoon during which a federal stimulus package – something sought by Democratic and Republican governors – was set to be a leading topic.
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“He gets it," Cuomo said of Biden, but “the problem is he has to get into office and then he has to propose a budget, so we’re looking at February, March.”
Not enacting anything to help the problem doesn’t sit well with some lawmakers, especially Democrats who run the Assembly. They are pushing a plan, still under negotiations with the Democrats who run the Senate, to enact an income tax hike on wealthy New Yorkers.
Cuomo insists the state should not act in a piecemeal basis, that any tax hikes – which he no longer rules out – should be in the context of an overall state budget plan that would, if done now without a certain federal aid picture, end up also leading to dramatic spending cuts in programs like aid to public schools.
“I favor waiting until next year," Cuomo said Wednesday.
The governor’s comments were not greeted warmly by one of his chief allies in Albany: Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat who has been leading the charge for lawmakers to come back now instead of waiting until their scheduled start date for the 2021 session on Jan. 6.
“I am confused by the governor’s logic," Heastie tweeted within an hour of Cuomo wrapping up a news conference. “He hasn’t cut anything so far. We are hoping to give him more revenue to ease the fiscal strain and help maintain essential services until the federal government provides assistance."
The Assembly leader suggested Cuomo’s threats of massive funding cuts to essential services like health care are ringing hollow with some Democratic lawmakers. He said Cuomo’s route will have the state waiting for Biden to take office and then propose his own federal budget plan and what he said are Democratic hopes that the party’s candidates can win two special election races in the U.S. Senate in Georgia that could flip the chamber to Democratic control.
Heastie added that Assembly Democrats were ready in March to enact higher taxes on wealthy residents; those talks fell apart in the final plan.
“With $11 billion in borrowing authority and $2.5 billion in unencumbered reserves, the governor doesn’t need to cut and he can wait for the federal government,’’ Heastie said of any spending cuts Cuomo might be considering.
The state Senate Democrats, who take over the 63-member Senate in their new supermajority status come January, took a diplomatic path after Cuomo’s suggestion that a tax-hike-only special session in January would be a mistake.
“Everything remains on the table," said Mike Murphy, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. “We are working with our partners in government to make sure whatever action we take helps to address the severity of the crisis at hand.’’
Cuomo said lawmakers should be taking up an entire state budget with any tax hike plans. Other revenue-raising ideas should then also be negotiated, he said, including the legalization and taxation of marijuana and permitting online sports betting. Cuomo and lawmakers were close last spring on a marijuana legalization plan, but it collapsed under the weight of a worsening Covid pandemic in March when budget talks were underway.
Some lawmakers have been strongly pushing legalization of mobile sports betting; the state allows sports betting only in person at state-authorized casinos. Cuomo for years has raised constitutional concerns about allowing mobile sports betting, saying the constitution should be changed – permitting New Yorkers to directly weigh in – for such kinds of gambling.
The New York State Association of Counties, whose members are also desperate for federal stimulus help, said localities have already seen more than $2 billion in lost sales tax revenues since Covid, a reduction of $600 million in state spending for local governments and rising demand for services.
"This is no way to run a government. Pitting different levels of government against each other does not serve the people of this country, this state and our communities," the group of county executives and other county officials said Wednesday.
