How in the world do you think NY will ever come out of this recession if you keep making the state LESS competitive relative to neighboring states? I guess you weren’t satisfied that NY already has the highest taxes in the nation so you voted to take a few more dollars from our pockets so that you know we’ll still be on top.
When is enough enough already? Why didn’t you propose any cuts to state government? All you did, besides raising taxes, was cut aid to school districts which in turn are just going pass the revenue shortfall on to homeowners in the form of increased property taxes.
NYS has close to 200,000 employees but I don’t hear anything about layoffs which I find strange since everyone is cutting back these days. How about reforming or eliminating government pensions? Nobody in the private sector gets a pension these days, that ended a couple of decades ago. All we have now are self-funded 401k plans and that’s probably what the state should have too. Greenwich CT switched to 401ks a few years ago and I bet that saved them tons of money. The state could also tax pension benefits which are currently tax free, but I guess that’d be like cutting off their own hands so I don’t expect it to happen. No we’re going to rely on collecting cigarette taxes from the Indians to balance the budget. What a joke!
NY can’t continue to borrow and spend, we need to cut back the spending and learn to live with what we have, like what most citizens have done during these trying times.
So why do we keep electing Suzi Oppenheimer to the state senate? A few years ago it didn’t really matter because Suzi, as a Democrat, was in the minority caucus and she didn’t have much of a say in anything. We had a governor, an assembly controlled by the Democrats and a Senate controlled by the Republicans. There was balance of power, no 1 party had the final say and both had to work with each other.
Now that Suzi and the Democrats control the state Senate, there’s NO balance of power and all the Democrats seem to do is increase spending and raise our taxes.
And if they’re going to increase any kind of spending, why don’t they increase unemployment benefits? NYS pays a maximum of $405/week yet NJ and CT payout close to $600/week and I think it costs a lot more to live in NY than either of these places. That’s a spending increase that most would support but our elected officials are doing nothing about it and I think we need to change legislative representatives.
Suzi won’t even support a tax cap that might do something to control rising property taxes so why send her back? Last election Suzi handedly beat Larchmont Mayor Liz Feld, but at the time I don’t think the voters realized how dysfunctional Albany had become since the Democrats took control of all 3 branches of state government.
In this coming election Bob Cohen is challenging Suzi Oppenheimer and it’s important that we send him rather than her to Albany because without balance of power NY keeps slipping backwards with rising taxes, increased debt and NO relief for the citizen.
One thing I haven’t heard coming out of Albany since the Democrats took control is talk of any kind of tax decrease/reduction that might actually foster job growth and take us out of this recession.
Vote Bob Cohen on November 2nd and let’s take back Albany for the sake of all NYers.