Bracing For The 2026 Budget: Spending Taxpayer Dollars Must Make Sense

 The broad strokes of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan for 2026 contains a handful of items spearheaded by the Assembly Minority Conference. I was happy to hear the governor talk about eliminating taxes for tipped workers, making childcare more affordable, cutting some of New York’s infamous regulatory red tape, and developing advanced nuclear energy in New York. In fact, these are all ideas championed by Assembly Republicans. This all sounds very promising.

On Tuesday, we move past the broad strokes and focus on the finer details when the governor presents her Executive Budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

Outside the obvious issues of affordability and runaway spending, there are several major structural concerns that need to be addressed in the upcoming budget. Unfortunately, the state’s spending plan will need to account for a $4.2 billion budget gap that is projected to balloon to nearly $27 billion in the next three years. This gap is not the result of a sudden revenue shortfall or unexpected expense, it is the consequence of years of mismanagement and unsustainable spending. In the last five years alone, state spending has jumped $81 billion. That represents a 46% increase, a number unheard of in other parts of the country.

And what has that money bought us? We rank, again, at the bottom of the Tax Foundation’s State Tax Competitiveness Index. We rank, again, at the bottom of the ALEC Rich States, Poor States Report. We are one of the worst states for outmigration in the nation, and according to the comptroller’s office, we have one of the worst housing burdens in the U.S. We need a budget that represents our place as the financial capital of the world, and these last few years have been nothing short of an embarrassment.

Our Conference has been focused on turning promise into practice long before Gov. Hochul took office. Getting a handle on property taxes, inflation and energy costs is a pillar of our economic plan. We have proposals in place to make it easier to afford both health care and childcare. Workforce development is extremely important as we further develop an economy rooted in information and processing power, and our infrastructure must also be brought up to speed. We have introduced bills addressing all of these and more in our Fight for New York policy plan.

The governor has indicated she wants state agencies to hold spending flat, and she has also called for them to identify burdensome and outdated regulations. That’s all great, but none of that matters if the final product ends up like it has for years: bloated, wasteful and pandering. The budget process is in its earliest stages. We must set aside lofty spending ambitions and unworkable energy policies and shift the full measure of our legislative attention to the financial crisis that reckless spending and headline-chasing policies have created—New York’s future demands it.

If you have any questions or comments on this or any other state issue, or if you would like to be added to my mailing list or receive my newsletter, please contact my office. My office can be reached by mail at 19 Canalview Mall, Fulton, NY 13069 and by email at [email protected]. You may also find me, Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, on Facebook or X at @WillABarclay.