Albany, N.Y., January 20-—State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C-Big Flats), Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee, today said that Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2026-2027 state budget calls for a highest-ever, $260-billion fiscal plan that increases spending by at least $8 billion over the budget she proposed last year and “continues to downplay the long-term fiscal realities facing this state, largely ignores the long-term burdens being shouldered by middle-class taxpayers, and refuses to take the steps needed to seriously address affordability and accountability.”

“It’s a budget plan and a fiscal strategy that, in the end, remains focused on how state government can maintain irresponsible levels of spending with an eye clearly on increasing spending in the future,” O’Mara said. 

O’Mara stressed that over the past six years, since the beginning of all-Democrat, total one-party control of state government in 2019, the Democrats’ “spend it now and figure it out later” approach to government has increased state spending upwards of $85 billion, a roughly 50% growth in spending far outpacing inflation during that time.

O’Mara released the following statement in reaction to the governor’s budget proposal:

“Governor Hochul and Albany Democrats can’t stop spending. It has been out of control, irresponsible, and even shocking. Despite all the warning signs, Governor Hochul keeps feeding a ‘spend, spend, spend’ addiction that will never make New York more affordable. It will keep driving hard-working taxpayers and middle-class families out of the state. It will keep killing jobs and strangling local economies.

“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, ignored the need for commonsense energy policies, ignored the demand for permanent, broad-based tax relief, and ignored the need for more responsible and efficient government that targets fraud and waste. Instead, the Democrats’ spending plans over the past several years have been just that: a one-party, far-left vision for spending billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars. 

“The Albany Democrat spending addiction has put in place massive, long-term spending commitments – including massive commitments looming in their pursuit of radical climate and other agendas – that will never be affordable or sustainable for state and local taxpayers, small businesses and manufacturers, and continually hard-pressed upstate communities, economies, and workers.

”Can taxpayers even begin to go on affording it in a state that is already one of the highest-taxed and least-affordable in the nation? Why is there no focus on taking a good, hard, renewed look at the cost of government to ensure it’s being run affordably, efficiently, legally, and responsibly – and that taxpayer dollars aren’t being ripped off?”

Like he did following Hochul’s State of the State message last week, O’Mara warned that the Democrat-led state Legislature, which he has called the “biggest-spending Legislature in state history,” will once again eye even higher, long-term spending commitments.

O’Mara was recently reappointed as the Ranking Republican member on the Senate Finance Committee which oversees the Legislature’s annual budget adoption process. 

Joint Senate-Assembly budget hearings are scheduled to begin next Tuesday. 

At the start of the new legislative session in early January, O’Mara and other members of the Senate GOP unveiled a “Save New York” legislative agenda to counteract Democrat proposals and offer a range of policies focusing on public safety and security, economic growth and job creation, commonsense energy policies, tax relief and regulatory reform, and affordability initiatives.