“Albany lawmakers are playing the same old song, and their one-house budget looks like a ‘greatest-hits’ list of new taxes. Their answer to every problem continues to be the same: spend more, tax more, and hope the numbers work out later.

The Assembly Majority’s staggering $272 billion one-house budget rests on a series of risky assumptions. It assumes tax hikes will generate enough revenue to cover runaway spending. It assumes businesses facing more taxes will simply stay and pay, no matter the cost. And it assumes despite continuously losing the share of America’s high earners, the highest tax burden in the country should move even higher.

At some point, Albany needs to recognize that taxing and spending is driving – not fixing – the state’s affordability crisis. Instead of confronting the structural problem and growing out-year budget gaps, the one‑house budget doubles down on the policies that created it. This includes extending a so-called ‘temporary’ business tax while simultaneously increasing the tax burden on businesses, once again asking the employers to shoulder more of Albany’s spending.

The proposal piles on new taxes aimed at financial firms and other businesses in New York City, including increases to the City’s general business tax and unincorporated business tax. At a time when states like Texas and Florida are aggressively courting these businesses with lower taxes and fewer barriers, Albany is giving them more reasons to leave.

Even the proposals we should be celebrating, like child‑care funding, are being propped up by tax hikes, while Medicaid waste and fraud, one of the biggest drivers of our budget crisis, goes unaddressed.

Unfortunately, this budget proposal fails to protect New Yorkers from the fiscal cliff Assembly Majority lawmakers are determined to push us toward. I hope the final state budget will pull us back from the edge.”