Three priorities
Conference outlines legislative priorities, puts focus on reviving state’s economy
Senate GOP aims to “reset” New York with 2021 legislative priorities./
Senate Republicans unveiled their Reset New York plan on Tuesday, promising to represent working-class New Yorkers and push back against progressive policies that the lawmakers say have prompted people to leave the state and made it less safe.
Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt said Republican lawmakers will focus on three priorities to “reset” New York: Restarting the economy, rethinking how the state operates and renewing lawmakers’ commitment to communities.
“We are going to have to enact legislation and policies that help our small business, our farms, our restaurants,” he said. “We need to enact legislation that is going to help them hire people back, help them grow and help them stem the losses they have suffered over the past year, and there are plenty of ways we can do that rather than hand over gobs of money.”
Democratic legislators have come out in support of increasing taxes on wealthy New Yorkers, a premise that Republicans have said will only lead to more people moving out of state.
Instead, Ortt said, policies should be in place to incentivize businesses to remain in New York. Other efforts could include eliminating taxes on manufacturers and examining the state’s economic development funding to see if funds should be placed elsewhere, he said. A focus also should be placed on ensuring reliable broadband service across the state, the senator said, noting that there are still many communities that do not have reliable access.
Republicans will also continue to push their colleagues to end the extensive emergency powers given to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo last year in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a move that lawmakers to the left have also expressed interest in doing.
“We can no longer, and we are well past the time, where one person should be governing the state and coming up with policies in response to the most significant public health crisis that we have faced in our lifetimes,” Ortt said.
Deputy Minority Leader Andrew Lanza said New York is “broken,” and pledged to work with GOP colleagues as well as across the aisle to “make New York a better place to live and do business.”
“We are going to use our voice and the leadership of this conference to help the people of New York understand which policies are working for them and which aren’t,” he said. “We are going to need the people of New York to rise up and say enough is enough, we want our state back. We want our jobs back, we want our public safety back, and we want New York, once again, to be the Empire State, ever upward.”