The state budget is being hailed by Democratic politicians as a win for Upstate and Western New York. But one Western New York Senator says the budget impact will have business owners fleeing the state in droves.
New York State Senator Sean Ryan believes the recently enacted state budget prioritizes getting New Yorkers back on their feet after last year’s economic belt tightening due to the COIVD-19 pandemic. Speaking on the budget at the Tonawanda Library in Kenmore Thursday, Ryan said, this will come that the expense of some tax payers.
“Well the concern is always, you know we're doing taxation,” he said. “So we're putting taxes on the millionaires. It's going to be an experiment. You know, you hear it said that if we tax millionaires, they'll leave. Much like we heard if you if you raise minimum wage that companies will stop hiring. Well, that didn't prove to be true. So we're going to see if in fact, this leads to people leaving New York State, and if it does, we come back and we adjust our policy for year number two.”
57th District Senator George Borrello believes the budget is not business owner friendly and worries about economic impact should those people leave for more business-friendly states.
“Well, I think you have to look at the fact that it's a record breaker when it comes to raising taxes,” he said. “And the amount of spending and all in the year when we got a huge amount of money from the federal government, and that is supposed to fill that budget gap. And yet despite even Robert Mujica, the budget director saying that we didn't need to raise taxes, that they felt that it had to be done.”
Borrello believes Governor Andrew Cuomo, hounded by sexual harassment claims against him, has given in to the progressive wing of the legislature and the contents of the budget reflect that notion.
