Seven “critical shortcomings” that NYS must address in 2026
A weekly COLUMN by NY State Senator Tom O’Mara,
Approaching a new legislative session in January, we unfortunately continue to face the same set of challenges and setbacks many of us have fought to address over the past several years in New York State government.
From combating crime to job creation to tax relief, one-party control of New York government has not been good for New York. It’s been a disaster. The Albany Democrat agenda for this state has produced billions upon billions of dollars of short- and long-term spending commitments requiring billions upon billions of dollars in taxes, fees, and borrowing for future generations.
That’s just for starters.
At the opening of the 2025 legislative session last January, when our Senate Republican Conference unveiled a “Liberate New York” agenda, I said, “Many New Yorkers are looking for a redirection of priorities and resources to begin truly addressing unmet challenges and crises, as well as charting a course for a saner, more sensible, and more sustainable state government. For far too long now, New Yorkers across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions, throughout Upstate New York, and statewide, have worried about making ends meet. They have watched this state become less safe, less affordable, less free, less economically competitive, less responsible, and certainly far less hopeful for the future. It’s time to get this state back on track towards a safer and stronger future.”
These words ring true to this very moment. In other words, we’ve made no progress on turning this state around. This state continues to neglect critical shortcomings, including, among many others, the need to:
- offer a safer and better quality of life for all New Yorkers by repealing bail reform and supporting law enforcement, corrections officers, crime victims and communities as a whole;
- make New York more affordable by cutting the state’s highest-in-the-nation tax burden and enacting a series of measures that lower the cost of living;
- Revisit and revise the state’s current energy strategy that relies on the rapid implementation of questionable and unsustainable mandates and, instead, enact more commonsense policies that ensures affordability, feasibility, and reliability;
- get New York off the bottom of the list of states in America with the worst business friendly climates;
- expand economic opportunity by cutting regulations and unfunded mandates, and refocus on a revitalization of New York’s manufacturing sector;
- provide equity and fairness in New York’s ongoing investments in physical infrastructure and broadband; and
- restore accountability, transparency, and local decision-making to New York government after years of unprecedented overreaches of executive power.
We must stay committed and renew the fight for a comprehensive set of goals to help grow local and state economies, focus on the affordability burdens facing middle-class families and small business owners, and make public safety an urgent priority.
The upcoming 2026 legislative session presents a pivotal crossroads. The state budget under one-party control, for example, has accelerated state spending at astronomical rates, to the point where the current state budget has surpassed $250 billion (an increase in spending of nearly $90 billion since 2019, the year the Democrats took control of every branch of state government!) and is already sparking talk among numerous leading Democrats of the need to authorize even higher taxes next year to continue to afford and even expand their appetite for more expensive government.
Keep in mind that New York State continues to rank dead last, worst in the nation, in the Tax Foundation’s recently released “Tax Competitiveness Index” that evaluates the tax climate in all 50 states in America in five major areas: corporate taxes; individual income taxes; sales and excise taxes; property and wealth taxes; and unemployment insurance taxes.
For the fifth straight year, New York comes in at the bottom of a sad heap. Yet, instead of causing alarm among New York’s all-Democrat leadership, their thoughts have already turned towards raising taxes in the new year to close projected deficits resulting from out-of-control spending, but also to try to afford new, even higher spending commitments.
The bottom line, in my view, should be clear: New York’s taxpayers can’t afford it anymore. Or take it. They’re already at the breaking point.
