Assembly Will Barclay

The Governor has set forth his Economic Development plan in his proposed 2013 budget. While there are some ideas that I can support, overall our state would benefit from policies that are fair to all businesses.

The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare is on its way to becoming policy. On June 28, 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “individual mandate was a valid exercise of Congress’ ability to levy taxes.”

There are two initiatives I want to highlight this week.  Both would reform the public assistance benefits system and reinstate integrity for everyone’s sake.

The 2009 budget contained a new tax for utilities. This, in turn, was unfortunately passed down to ratepayers. The “Temporary State Energy Utility Service Conservation Assessment” or 18-A was scheduled to sunset in March 2014.

The Governor proposed his executive budget on Jan. 22. Overall, it was a status quo budget that did not contain a lot of surprises. I was pleased to see more state aid provided to schools.

While the average age at onset is 60, people have been diagnosed as young as 18. There is no objective test, or biomarker, for Parkinson’s Disease, so the rate of misdiagnosis can be relatively high.

The Governor gave his annual State of the State address on Jan. 9 in Albany. This speech outlined the executive’s agenda. While there were many things I was glad to hear the Governor mention, the majority of our efforts should focus on creating jobs rather than gun control and campaign finance.

We hear a lot about using our assets at colleges and universities to help create jobs. I support efforts to see that our regional economy benefits from the intellectual capital and resources at our state’s higher education institutes.

I wanted to remind you of the signs of depression and help you be able to recognize its symptoms, and where to go for help. Also, managing a healthy diet is often a challenge during holiday times, especially for those with diabetes.