Since 2020, New York State's budget has increased 104 BILLION DOLLARS! That's more than a 60% increase over the last 6 years. Has your paycheck increased 60% since then?
Pretty much every candidate in New York State is running on "affordability.” That’s because unchecked, one-party rule in Albany for the past six years has created an affordability crisis.
Albany Democrats regularly fund their pet projects, ignore the fraud in many well-intentioned programs, and spend our tax money to bail out New York City — this has led to this financial crisis. As a result, New York State is losing more of its residents to less expensive states. People just can't afford to live here anymore.
With the frightening rise of the Democratic Socialists of America movement in our state, the affordability crisis is on track to get MUCH worse. Our current Senator, Rachel May, is fully on board with this far-left movement. In fact, she is leading the DSA charge in CNY! In a Democratic primary this year, the vast majority of local leaders in her own party supported a long-serving, well-liked, and highly productive member of the Assembly for re-election. Not Rachel May. She went in the wrong direction, as usual. She turned her back on the independents and moderates on both sides of the aisle in CNY by supporting a DSA candidate against a well-liked moderate. The DSA candidate won… thanks to Rachel May. People downstate must be thrilled.
Rachel May and her DSA friends push hard on expensive mandates and, of course, higher taxes. As a realtor, I see firsthand how difficult it has become for folks to buy a home. As a county legislator, I have supported/voted for increased funding for closing costs and down payment assistance programs, which will lower barriers to homeownership by providing much-needed assistance to first-time homeowners. I will take that same mindset to Albany to help restore affordability to New York.
It’s no secret that New York has a reputation for high taxes. In just the last two years, Rachel May has sponsored or co-sponsored legislation to raise taxes or add new taxes SEVEN times!
From inheritance tax that can cripple a family business when passing it on to the next generation… to additional capital gains tax that makes it harder for that family business to grow in the first place… to higher income tax that punishes success (just to name a few), Rachel May wants to extract more and more from hardworking New Yorkers.
New York has the 2nd highest individual income tax as a percent of personal income, the 4th highest property tax as a percent of personal income, and the 2nd highest total tax burden in the country.
Is it any wonder we lead the country in out-migration?
As a county legislator, I have voted 4 times to LOWER taxes, and I co-sponsored legislation to suspend the local sales tax on gas sales once they passed $4 a gallon. I have NEVER voted to raise taxes.
If elected as your senator, I will vote for the “Taxpayer Rescue Plan” that will eliminate state personal income tax on the first $50,000 for single filers and $100,000 for those married filing jointly. Middle-class families need a break.
We don’t have a taxing problem in this state; we have a spending problem. As your senator, I will work diligently to root out wasteful spending and spur economic development, which will allow us to reduce the tax burden on our residents.
New York’s electricity rates are 70% higher than the national average and 50% higher than our neighbors in Pennsylvania. The cost of electricity in NY has gone up 11% in the last year — which is double the national average increase. To make matters worse, our rates are expected to go even higher next year!
All of this is because New York State has a completely unrealistic energy policy that ignores reality and is championed by Rachel May. We need a course correction, and I will gladly lead that charge.
The state-mandated push to eliminate the use of natural gas and other fossil fuels has created an enormous burden on our aging electrical infrastructure. Yet rather than invest in efficient and reliable energy production, the state has actually SHUT DOWN power plants — including the highly productive, carbon-free Indian Point nuclear plant. At the time that plant was shut down, it was producing more power than ALL of the solar panels in New York State combined!
Simple economics teaches us that when you increase the demand for something at the same time you reduce the supply, prices will rise. And that is just what has happened. All of this was put in motion BEFORE the AI boom even came along.
At the eleventh hour last year, when reality smacked the majority party in the face, and they had to pause their fantasy-land energy plans to avert massive blackouts, stranded buses full of schoolchildren, and people freezing in their homes across the state, the sensible senators in the Democratic Party begrudgingly admitted they needed to “delay” their plans. The Republican Conference joined them in voting to avert chaos. Rachel May was not interested in bipartisan reality.
Senator May voted to NOT roll back the most outrageous mandates and requirements. Senator May stood her ground to signal to her cronies that their pipe dreams are more important to her than your comfort and security. Senator May still thinks eliminating diesel school buses in the immediate future is the way to go despite overwhelming evidence that this is nearly impossible technically and is astronomically expensive to implement.
And she thinks having solar panels on our lakes, farms, and forests is a good idea. This is completely lacking in common sense.
Data centers are getting a lot of attention lately. They unquestionably consume a great deal of power and, in many cases, water. While I support the temporary moratorium on data centers and believe firmly that they must each pay for the necessary upgrades to power generation and transmission they create, I think it is short-sighted to simply ban them altogether. If and when more data centers are built in New York, they need to be located where they will be welcomed by the communities that host them.
Having served 20 years as an Onondaga County Sheriff’s Deputy, the safety of our communities is one of my top priorities. Because when someone is unsafe, nothing else matters. I’ve seen how little it takes to trigger bad people to do awful things and how quickly innocent victims can have their lives forever damaged by those actions.
The current culture in NYS that has been created, reinforced, and nurtured by Rachel May and her out-of-touch DSA colleagues unquestionably puts the comfort and convenience of criminals ahead of the rights and dignity of victims and law-abiding citizens.
Cashless bail not only allows but practically encourages revolving door justice. When there is effectively no punishment for crime, there is, in reality, no deterrent to committing crime. The criminals have figured this out.
Thanks to the HALT Act, incarcerated criminals now have very little deterrence to attacking teachers, staff, guards, and other inmates. People get hurt, and the already convicted felons are quickly released back into the general population.
The Clean Slate law hides from the public the records of violent criminals after they have been released from prison. In New York, employers no longer have the right to know if they are putting their employees at risk by hiring someone with a known past of extreme violence.
If elected, I will advocate for the immediate repeal of Cashless Bail, the HALT Act, and Clean Slate. Rachel May supported all of these bills, and she supports several more that are still being debated.
New York has long had a reputation for being unfriendly to businesses, and that hurts our economy. We need to expand opportunities for businesses to invest in New York so that more job-creating companies like Micron choose our state to grow their businesses. We also need to make it less burdensome to start a business in New York.
The unnecessary red tape required to see a project to fruition is confusing, expensive, and time-consuming. It's a lot easier for a business to simply choose to locate in a state with fewer hurdles and roadblocks. We need to eliminate unnecessary regulations and simplify the others.
Albany loves to spend other people's money. These crushing government mandates are hurting small businesses, schools, and local governments. We need to require any state-mandated program imposed on municipalities or school districts to be funded by the state. We also must streamline the state rule-making and licensing processes. I support legislation that has been introduced to address these problems.
There is simply too much violence against women in New York. From domestic violence to human trafficking to the horrific situation at Cornell, stories arise in the news and then fade away. Nothing seems to change. I'm not okay with that.
We absolutely have to start putting victims ahead of criminals if we want this to change. We have to make it easier and faster for victims to obtain orders of protection, make it much harder for predators to re-offend, and prioritize domestic violence cases in our court systems. We need to dramatically increase the penalties for human trafficking – which is a form of slavery – especially when the victims are minors. I propose that any sexual assault occurring on or related to a college event must be handled by a municipal police agency and not by a campus police department that may feel pressure to protect the school's reputation. We must also close the loophole regarding voluntary and involuntary intoxication as it relates to consent.
The culture of acceptance has to end.
The harms caused by this violence go beyond the obvious pain to the individuals involved. The victims often feel shame and suffer diminished self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. This robs them of their ability to realize their full potential and, in turn, robs society of many of their contributions.
We must also acknowledge that males and females are biologically different, and those differences put females at a physical disadvantage competitively when it comes to sports. In some cases, it can put them in harm's way. While people are free to be who they wish to be and to present themselves however they choose to identify, it is grossly unfair to allow biological males to compete against biological females.
We need to make sure our young people are prepared for the job market they will enter. I am excited about the significant partnerships Micron has with OCC, SU, and Le Moyne. The Cleanroom Simulation Lab at OCC is quite impressive and a testament to their commitment! Micron also has numerous partnerships with both SUNY and private schools across the state. As a county legislator, I have always been supportive of partnerships like these and will continue that commitment at the state level.
Students should be incentivized through grants and low-cost student loans to pursue degrees in high-demand disciplines.
Educational opportunities do not have to end once you hit your mid-twenties. I support the SUNY and CUNY Reconnect program that helps non-traditional-age students earn associate degrees tuition-free in high-demand fields. Yet, education is more than just college.
We must also support residents attending trade schools. Too often, the trades take a back seat to college-track careers, and that's never made any sense to me. Fields like plumbing, electrical, welding, and carpentry have more people nearing retirement than young people entering. That's a problem. These are good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced or done by AI.
New Yorkers pursuing careers in the trades should get the same level of support as their peers in college.
Education doesn't start when you are an adult. When we lower the bar of expectations on our young people, we put them at a massive disadvantage. Primary and secondary education has gotten too far away from the “three R's” and has veered too deeply into the realm of indoctrination. The percentages of NY students with math and reading skills at a basic level or above are too often below the national average. In our city schools, those numbers are shockingly low. We need to stop teaching students to be ashamed of our country's history and get back to teaching them how to read and write.
I support providing parents with broader educational opportunities for their children. Let's get kids into learning environments where they can thrive and not just be pushed on to the next grade.
Parents also have the right to know what is going on with their kids. If a student is struggling with behavioral, identity, or socialization issues, schools must not withhold this information from parents. The same goes for truancy and academic underperformance.
There are four members of the State Legislature who have not been to Albany once this year, including two who are both 89 years old and battling long-term illnesses. These two elderly representatives have been in office for decades: one for 24 years, the other 35 years. Is that really the best representation for their communities?
It is long past time we set term limits for statewide office as well as the Senate and Assembly. As a member of the Onondaga County Legislature, we self-imposed these limits, and New York State should do the same.
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