A weekly COLUMN by New York State Senator Tom O’Mara,
We will soon be hearing more from Governor Kathy Hochul on where she intends to take this state in the year ahead. Next week’s State of the State message to the Legislature is traditionally a broad outline of a governor’s priorities and vision for the future.
Most importantly, it begins setting the stage for what comes next: the adoption of a new state budget which, in the coming months, will be the tallest mountain to climb.
On that note, I look forward to continuing this year in my role as the Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee, a post I have held since 2021. Unfortunately during this time, despite the efforts of many of us to work against it, It’s been a front row seat to what has been nothing short of a breathtaking, even shocking at times, Albany Democrat spending spree.
Last April, for example, when Governor Hochul and the Democrat legislative majorities in the Senate and Assembly finished stocking up what would become New York’s largest-ever state budget, the warnings kept coming about its irrational spending. Recall that by the time the governor and the Democrat-led Legislature put the finishing touches on the final 2025-2026 state budget in May, affordability was nowhere in sight. It totaled upwards of $254 billion and increased state spending by at least $15 billion over the year before.
Above all, it simply continued their “spend it now and figure it out later” approach to governing that, since 2019, has increased state spending by approximately $85 billion! That’s nearly a 50% increase in the overall state budget in just seven years, which is the period that Democrats have held one-party control of all state government. By contrast, the prior seven-year period when we had a Republican majority in the state Senate, annual budget increases were kept to within a two to three percent range.
Throughout this era of total one-party control of the state’s purse strings, Albany Democrats have ignored the affordability crisis, ignored the overriding need for mandate relief and regulatory reform, and ignored the demand for permanent, broad-based tax relief. Instead, the Democrats’ spending plans over the past several years have been just that: a one-party vision for spending billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars.
Will we be in store for more of the same this year? Can taxpayers even begin to continue affording it in a state that is already one of the highest taxed and least affordable in the nation? In my view, that’s the key question: Can the fully Democrat-led state government keep irrationally tossing around taxpayer dollars like there’s no tomorrow?
With all of that in mind at this week’s start of the 2026 legislative session, there was an ominous but clear-eyed warning in a recent New York Post editorial, which noted, “With a new legislative season about to kick off and a socialist (New York City) mayor taking office, Gov. Kathy Hochul will find herself under enormous pressure from left-wing Democrats… Affordability and the economy, energy, housing, public safety and criminal justice — as well as managing cuts in federal funding — can all ignite fateful battles…(NYC Mayor Zohran) Mamdani will push Hochul hard to fulfill his free-stuff and affordability agenda…Incumbent Democratic lawmakers worried about their own left flank are likely to join him in pressing Hochul to jack up taxes and ship billions to the city for Mamdani’s free buses, universal day care and other goodies…Already, after taking fire from her left flank…the gov has suggested she’s open to hiking at least business taxes.”
That’s the key question: Will Democrats, including the governor, plow through this new year in an all-out pursuit of maintaining their big spending ways at all costs? Already, many of Albany’s socialist-leaning, big city Democrats are making it clear that they have no appetite whatsoever for the fiscal restraint that state and local taxpayers desperately need.
I can promise you that our Senate Republican Conference will remain a voice for spending restraint, as well as for lower taxes, less regulation, affordability, economic growth, job creation, and more common sense on state fiscal practices and energy policies, for starters.
New York government cannot continue down this road of high taxes, unrestrained spending, unfunded mandates, overregulation, and all the other obstacles to sustained economic growth and job creation statewide – and still expect New Yorkers to just keep taking it.
It’s been irresponsible and unsustainable. It has left us as America’s leader in population loss. It has reduced us to being a state in decline.
We need to keep working against a New York State tax and regulatory mindset that puts manufacturers and businesses, large and small, at a competitive disadvantage and imposes red tape that strangles local economies.
We have to keep fighting for lower taxes, economic growth, job creation, regulatory reform, debt reduction, and other actions that prioritize creating opportunities for a stronger and more affordable future for all New Yorkers.
