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, March 12, 2015
Contact: Michael Fraser, (518) 455-3751 (office); (518) 859-8518 (cell)
Budget Resolution Fails Taxpayers
'The Assembly Majority Has Endorsed a Spending Plan That Fails
to Represent the Best Interests of 19 Million New Yorkers'

"The Assembly Majority's one-house budget resolution is completely out of touch with the realities facing New Yorkers. This is the same blueprint that has made New York the nation's worst in taxes, in regulations, in business climate - but first in the number of residents leaving.

The budget resolution introduced today in the Assembly:

  • removes overdue ethics and anti-corruption reforms and creates welfare for politicians through taxpayer-funded campaigns;
  • unfairly favors a few big-city school districts with state aid, rather than taking an equitable approach for all districts by restoring the devastating "Gap Elimination Adjustment" funding cuts of 2011;
  • ignores the issue of crippling property taxes by failing to include any mandate relief for local governments;
  • includes tuition-assistance funding for illegal immigrants, while our education system faces budget shortfalls, program cuts and staffing layoffs;
  • fails to hold accountable individuals who commit welfare fraud, but penalizes businesses for the misdeeds of individuals who defraud taxpayers; and
  • disregards the needs of our job-creating small businesses, which face mounting costs and regulatory burdens just to keep their doors open.

The policies and priorities outlined in the Assembly Majority resolution are simply wrong. This is not a spending plan that moves our state forward, and is not one that represents the best interests of 19 million New Yorkers."