News from Assembly Minority Leader Brian M. Kolb
Assembly Office:
933 Legislative Office Building • Albany, NY 12248 • (518) 455-3751
District Offices:
607 West Washington Street • Suite 2 • Geneva, NY 14456 • (315) 781-2030
E-mail:

For Release: IMMEDIATELY, January 8, 2014
Contact: Michael Fraser, (518) 455-3751/ (518) 859-8518
Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R,C,I-Canandaigua) Statement On The 2014 State Of The State Address

"As we start a new year, New York State is still home to the nation's highest taxes, worst business climate, and an economy that is still recovering. There are existing opportunities to get more money into the pockets of taxpayers, create more jobs, and make it easier for businesses to succeed. Unfortunately, many of those items were not contained in today's address.

It is time to dramatically lower the cost of living and working in New York State. Mandate relief has not come fast enough or with any true conviction. Since 2001, the Assembly has passed 140 unfunded mandates with a total cost of $93.7 billion. With that in mind, it's curious that the Governor takes issue with the number of municipalities, and not the number of unfunded mandates coming out of Albany.

We can improve our deplorable business climate by eliminating onerous regulations like the Wage Theft Protection Act's annual notice requirement, repealing the Scaffold Act, and reforming the Workers' Compensation Law. Any conversation about the future of Upstate New York's economy needs to include a decision on hydrofracking in the Southern Tier, but we continue to wait.

Proposals on boosting school technology and improving infrastructure are worth consideration, but taking on billions in new debt creates more problems than it solves.

As with any State of the State Address, we'll wait to see specific details behind the proposals. With a number of critical issues to consider, we have tremendous opportunities to improve the lives of New Yorkers across the State."