Following a 23-hour debate on the floor of the New York State Assembly on the $175.5 billion 2019-20 State Budget, Assemblyman Doug Smith (5^th Assembly District) issued this statement:

“The people of our great state deserve better than a government that conducts last-minute negotiations behind closed doors in the dead of night with no public input. With newly-elected suburban Majority senators as their accomplices for the first time in state history, the New York City Majority has assumed voting control of our state government leading to a budget that increases spending $5 billion, hikes taxes by $1.2 billion, establishes a new internet sales tax, cuts state aid to the townships of Brookhaven and Islip by a combined $3.6 million, provides the lowest increase in school aid over the last 8 years, fails to provide funding for promised salary increases for direct-care workers who work with children and adults with disabilities, hikes tuition rates at our state university campuses, and cuts millions of dollars in critical infrastructure funding to pave and repair our local roads and bridges.

“Adding insult to injury, the budget was riddled with new policy items including a criminal justice overhaul that limits the ability for judges to place bail on suspects while making onerous procedural changes without providing adequate funding increases for court staff, limits the ability for police officers to make arrests, creates a new un-elected congestion pricing panel that could hike tolls as high as $25 for morning commuters into Manhattan, enacts a so-called ‘public financing’ campaign system for politicians that will provide up to $100 million in taxpayer dollars for junk mail and dinnertime robocalls, and spends over $27 million for free and reduced college tuition to illegal immigrants of any age after just 30 days living in our state courtesy of New York taxpayers.

“It is crystal clear that this governor and his new New York City Majority politicians are more concerned about the well-being of the dangerous individuals who break our laws and disregard their victims. After 23-hours of debate, arm-twisting, and political theater, it was very fitting that the long night ended at 7:30am on April Fool’s Day, with a resolution giving Gov. Cuomo a $45,000 pay increase.

“I was happy to stand loud and strong on the floor of the Assembly and debate the deeply flawed budget to make sure my constituents – the forgotten middle class – were heard loud and clear. It may be a democrat majority in Albany, but there was nothing democratic at all about the process that took place last night. The people of our great state deserve better.”