New York State of Mind

Posted On April 9, 2020April 30, 2020

New York’s governor Cuomo was back on TV today in a press conference complaining that his state was shorted in the $2.2 trillion emergency COVID-19 relief bill which was recently signed into law.  He says that his state is broke and his budget is destroyed and he wants a bailout.

I am 100% behind providing states with all the funds necessary to fight the scourge of COVID-19.  I even would agree to help backfill some of the revenue shortfalls that they are experiencing caused by the forced shutdown of the economy.  What I do not support are states which refuse to reevaluate their budgets and strip it to only barebones, necessary spending. 

Many states with liberal/progressive governments made budgetary spending decisions based on ideology and not needs. These states were in a budget mess long before this current crisis and  New York is a good example.  I do not want to have any of my tax money going to support any state’s non-critical programs. 

New York as an example has:

• $33 billion to fight “climate change”. This is NOT “settled science” and is NOT an immediate threat.  
• It contains $275 billion for state infrastructure.  Good for them, but if they want to do this, let their own state citizens fund it.  Michigan, as an example, has the worst roads in the nation, yet their citizens are expected to “fix their own damn roads”. 
• New York budgeted an “Excelsior” free college tuition program.  This should be purely state funded. Nothing is being done to control the runaway costs of higher education.
• Money is dedicated to an “inclusive ERA” initiative.
• A permanently ban on all fracking in the budget which reduces state income.
• Money is provided for “protection against hate crimes” which amounts to politically-correct censorship.

This is just a small sample of the type of spending of which many Americans disagree and do not want to support financially.  It is fine for states to do their own budgets, but they should not expect citizens of other states to support their ideologically-driven programs.