GOWANDA – If I could have one wish granted in the New Year, it would be for be for a return of respect and bipartisanship in Albany to ensure that state government serves the common good of all New Yorkers, both upstate and downstate.
This is my last statement as an elected official. It is not made out of malice for any region or political party. It is made out of profound concern for our great state and the hard-working New Yorkers who make this the Empire State.
New Yorkers have a lot to be proud of. New York was the first capital of the United States. Much of the Revolutionary War was fought here and more New Yorkers fought and died during the Civil War, ending slavery and saving the union, than any other state.
Wall Street is the center of global finance and many consider New York City the cultural capital of Western civilization.
We are truly all in this together, upstate and downstate, but a majority of those in power in the state Capitol don’t think or believe it. The fact is the people running things in Albany have turned rural, upstate New York into a colony of New York City.
They treat us not as fellow New Yorkers but as a resource farm to supply them with energy, food and raw materials. Sometimes we are a convenient backdrop for a press conference.
It’s a resource extraction model that would have the NYC elites protesting in the streets if it were happening to their constituents. We send money and electricity to NYC. In return we get taxes and regulations that are killing rural New York.
Under one-party-rule, the most powerful members of the legislature are from New York City. Yes, Gov. Hochul is from Buffalo. I hoped she would bring some Western New York common sense to Albany. Instead, she embraced the most radical members of her conference.
Despite the cache of being home to one of the world’s great cities, upstate would be better off without New York City. That’s why I co-sponsored A01978 to hold a referendum on whether we should divide New York into two separate states. The Democrat majority killed the bill in committee and it never got a fair hearing.
We are in a similar situation to what the 13 Colonies lived under. We need independence from New York City the same way our country needed independence from the British Empire
A lot of my downstate colleagues believe upstate could never survive without Wall Street revenue. The truth is New York City needs upstate more than we need Wall Street.
Sure, Wall Street generates $19 billion in revenue for New York each year and all of us benefit to a certain degree. But relying on Wall Street is dangerously short sighted.
Wall Street is data. You can do data from anywhere. The pandemic proved it, which is why so many offices in Manhattan remain empty three years later.
Agriculture is the true economic foundation of New York State. New York’s farmers and ranchers generate $5.7 billion in gross income per year. Agriculture and related industries like cheese and yogurt production account for a whopping $44 billion in economic activity each year.
And you can’t squeeze a potato or a cow down a fiber-optic cable.
Meanwhile, the majority is working hard to drive us into bankruptcy. New York State’s budget has ballooned $70 billion dollars since 2018 when the one-party rule took over.
Our state budget was $170 billion in 2018. The current state budget is $234.9 billion dollars. That’s insane, reckless and unsustainable.
The governor’s own budget division in June projected that current state spending will far outpace revenue to tune of $2.3 billion in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, $4.3 billion the following year and $7.3 billion for the 2027-2028 fiscal year. Her own accountants are projected a $14 billion deficit within four years.
Let’s put these numbers in perspective. New York has a population of 19 million and an annual budget of $234.9 billion. That’s nearly double the state budgets of two places New Yorkers are fleeing to.
Florida has a population of 22.6 million and a state budget of $116.5 billion. Texas has a population of 30.5 million and a state budget of $144 billion.
So the combined budgets of Texas and Florida, two more populace states, is $260.5 billion. Our budget is $234.9 billion. Does that make sense?
And where is that $234 billion going? The CEOs of regional nonprofits, schools, libraries, hospitals and human service agencies tell me all the time that their state aid is has been flat or heading in negative territory. They rarely receive cost of living (COLA) increases from the state despite having to pay for unfunded mandates from Albany like increases in the minimum wage, and demands to switch their facilities from fossil fuels to all electric heat, etc.
The governor held a press conference last year to laud a $500 million fund to help school districts switch to all electric buses. The media played it up. She got great press on that one.
In reality, it will cost taxpayers $20 billion to fully convert all New York schools to electric school buses by 2035, which is the mandated deadline of New York’s fatuously misnamed Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
The CLCPA is leading New York to bankruptcy. It also won’t do a thing to mitigate carbon emissions and reduce global warming. New York State is responsible for 0.4 percent of worldwide carbon emissions. If the majority truly cared about climate change, they would be protesting in Tiananmen Square demanding that the Chinese government stop building coal-fired electric plants.
Generations of New Yorkers will wind up paying for these policies. We are being taxed to death and taxpayers and businesses are fleeing New York like they never have before. New York leads the nation in outmigration. It’s the great emptying of the Empire State.
Devoted to their own short-term interests, those in power ignore or are blind to the damage they are doing to our state.
New York politics is out of whack. Only New York’s voters can save it.
Assemblyman Joseph Giglio represents the 148th District, which consists of all of Cattaraugus and Allegany counties and portions of Steuben County as well. Following 19 years in the Assembly, he decided to not seek re-election. His last day in office is Dec. 31. For more information, visit Assemblyman Giglio’s Official Website.
