New York State Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins: Cathy Hochul has been ‘pretty clear’ about raising taxes this year

She read her lips: no new taxes!

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins ​​(D-Yonkers) downplayed the possibility of higher taxes on the rich this year, given Gov. Kathy Hochul has already drawn a red line around the issue.

“There will always be a segment of the Legislative Assembly that is looking for [to increase taxes]. I think the Governor has made it clear that this is not an argument she is entertaining this year,” Stewart-Cousins ​​said in an interview with WCNY on Friday.

Hochul said in her State of the Union address Tuesday that the risk of an economic recession is too great “to raise income taxes this year,” despite projected future deficits following last year’s record high $220 billion budget.

But Assembly Speaker Carl Histi left the door open to pushing for the tax hike when journalists asked his position on the issue ahead of the April 1 state budget deadline and the release of Hohul’s proposed budget wording later this month.

“It’s like pre-season budget talks when the governor releases the State of the Union,” Histie, whose overwhelming Democratic majority has traditionally pushed for higher taxes on the wealthy more than the State Senate.

“She’ll present the budget and then I’ll talk to the attendees and see where we go,” Histie said of where his conference will land this year.

Some financial experts warn that raising taxes on the wealthy could be counterproductive if high-net-worth individuals then move to other states, given New York City’s over-reliance on fundraising from a small group of super-rich people.

But proponents of progress say skinning the wealthy could help poor and middle-class New Yorkers cope with rising costs and economic uncertainty.

The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the State Senate are leaning further to the left this year after the election of new Progressives and Democratic Socialists, along with reelection losses and resignations among relatively moderate suburban lawmakers.

But Stewart-Cousins ​​said on Friday she sees no need to raise taxes until certain types of social spending are cut.

That includes the billions of dollars in additional school funding that Hochul agreed last year to funnel into public schools after years of fighting between the Legislature and the ex-governor. Andrew Cuomo.

“We will always have a debate about priorities,” said a powerful Yonkers broker.

“We will always have arguments about how to finance them, but again, I am glad that we are not discussing the need for us to fulfill our obligations regarding education, childcare, universal pre-school education and other types of education,” she added.

Other politicians on the left are unlikely to give up trying to raise taxes, despite what Stuart-Cousins ​​says about resistance to the idea from governors.

“Not if we have something to say about it,” the Friday newspaper said. tweet from the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in response to her WCNY comments.

Senate Democrats are embroiled in a growing fight with Hochul over centrist Judge Hector LaSalle, her controversial nomination to head the state’s highest court.

The stage is also set for a standoff between the Governor and Progressives over possible changes to the state’s bail laws amid rising crime.

But Stewart-Cousins ​​had some nice words for the struggling governor, answering a question in an interview taped Thursday afternoon about whether the Hohul administration could “walk and chew gum” on nasty topics like taxes and LaSalle.

“I would describe it as warm, good, professional,” she said of her relationship with Khokul.