What is the Budget and Why is it Important?

  • The state can’t spend money or collect money without passing laws.
  • The laws on spending and collecting money are mostly in the budget.
  • In NY the governor proposes the budget in January.
  • Then the Assembly and the Senate edit his proposals and pass their own version of the budget.
  • After they do this, the three sides—Senate, Assembly, and Governor—then negotiate a final agreed upon budget.
  • Once they all agree, the Senate and Assembly pass the budget, and the governor signs it into law.
  • They try to do this all by April 1st

How does the IDC + Felder cabal impact the Budget process?

  • With the support of Governor Cuomo, the IDC, a group of 8 Democratic senators, have joined with another Democratic senator, Simcha Felder, to give the Republicans a majority in the Senate—despite the Republicans winning fewer seats.
  • While this Cuomo-backed IDC + Felder cabal may say they support progressive legislation, by giving the Republicans a majority, they support a Republican, John Flanagan, as Majority Leader.
  • Cuomo benefits from this arrangement by not having to sign any actual progressive legislation, which would complicate his 2020 presidential run.
  • This would be the equivalent of Nancy Pelosi, with a Democratic majority, voting for Paul Ryan for Speaker—with the support of President Obama.
  • The Majority Leader gets to assign people to run committees, including the finance committee. The finance committee is chaired by Republican Senator Catharine Young.
  • The chair of each committee decides which legislation will leave to be voted on. Progressive legislation passed in the Assembly regularly dies in committee in the Senate as a result.
  • When the Senate is drafting its edits to the governor’s budget, because the IDC + Felder has made it the Majority, it drafts a significantly more conservative budget. The Assembly, which has a clear Democratic Majority, drafts a more progressive budget.
  • Consequently, during budget negotiations the Republican Senate, which only has the majority because of the IDC + Felder cabal,  rejects many progressive proposals and cuts funding for progressive priorities.
  • Without the Cuomo-backed IDC + Felder cabal, the budget would be much more in line with Democratic priorities.
  • Instead the Republican budget cuts taxes on the rich, defunds programs for the most in need New Yorkers, and hurts public schools.
  • Even if the IDC + Felder cabal vote against this budget, they still facilitate the gutting of important protections and funding that state desperately needs.
  • This way Governor Cuomo’s IDC + Felder cabal can say they support progressive legislation without having to vote on it, thereby not jeopardizing the perks this arrangement provides them, like more money, bigger offices, and powerful seats in committees they would never have otherwise.
  • The IDC + Felder cabal say they give the Republicans so much power because it gives them more leverage to get things done. But in reality, the only thing they get out of it is personal gain.

If you voted for a Democrat, that person should be working to pass Democratic legislation, not collaborate with the party of Trump to block it.