“What we saw today was how New York City does business every day. Instead of cutting spending we watched New York City liberals call for an increase of $5.6 billion in taxes. We watched them call for free college for illegal immigrants. We watched them try to cut agricultural assistance by 50 percent. These aren’t the values of the rest of our state. We are already taxed too much. Everybody outside of Albany and New York City knows this to be a self-evident truth. We cannot continue down the road of high taxation, overregulation and increasing social welfare programs. We’re driving hundreds of thousands out of the state. We must reverse course. This budget needs much more work to represent the entirety of New York State.

“The minimum wage hike presented in the budget will impact local governments, nonprofits and small businesses. The impact on each of these sectors is drastically underestimated. Our schools will face another 70,000 layoffs statewide with current funding levels. Without an increase in Medicaid funding our home health agencies will be devastated. The property tax cap forces local governments to be dependent upon state government to make up the shortfall. Once again we have not attempted to offset the largest unfunded mandate. The full state takeover of Medicaid would provide significant savings for small businesses, senior citizens and first-time homeowners.”