Budget Follies by Tom Reynolds
Today is April 27th.
You may – or may not – have noticed that the New York State budget was due on April 1st (appropriately April Fool’s Day.)
The New York City budget is due this Friday, May 1st. It’s probable that Mayor Commie will ask to delay that date since NY City has a reported $5.4 BILLION budget gap that Mamdani wants closed by tax hikes and more state aid. (Of course, spending cuts are a no no.) The Chairwoman of the state Assembly’s Committee on Local Governments said, “It’s really stressful.” (Sarcasm intended.)
Showing their usual ability to focus on what’s important to them, Governor Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders are discussing a union-backed proposal to boost the pensions of some government workers that could cost the city $328 million more, annually. (A good political plan – buy votes of union workers in an election year. Those darn economics just keep getting in their way.)
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters “We have not gotten to money.” Apparently, fiscal issues were not even being discussed, since budget talks are still centered on policy issues, like pension hikes.
Why is this important to 2A defenders, besides the fact we live in NY State and it will hit our pocketbooks?
The NY State legislature is only in session until June 30th and they don’t like overtime since they don’t get extra pay for it. (Even though they are the nation’s highest paid legislators.)
Most proposed non-fiscal legislation don’t get attention until after the budget is passed; non-fiscal includes the raft of anti-2A bills. The less time between passing the budget and June 30th means less time to wreak havoc on our Constitutional Rights. So, if NY City communists must be more stressed out in order to save 2A, here is a link to anxiety medications. List of 54 Anxiety Medications Compared
An aside -beware of late NY State budgets.
New York State has a sales tax on Nursing Home charges (they don’t call it a sales tax but that’s what it is. Republicans refer to it as a ‘Health Tax’ and Democrats don’t refer to it at all.) About twenty years ago, the state did not pass the budget until late August; included was a 1% increase in the Health Tax that was retroactive to April 1st. Nursing Homes were expected to rebill their patients that extra 1% for five months. The problem is that they were Nursing Homes and some of those patients had died!
