Hochuls budget fantasy speeds NY off a spending cliff heres who must call her out

New York’s state budget is nearly a month late, and Albany’s Republicans have a rare chance to be relevant.Will they take it?Gov.

Hochul has been locked in budgetary combat with legislative Democrats.Their main battle isn’t over spending, but rather policy changes without big fiscal impacts: Senate and Assembly Dems bristled at Hochul’s proposals to make it easier to lock up and treat people with severe mental illness, and harder for defense lawyers to have criminal cases tossed on technicalities.Meanwhile Republicans, who hold just over a third of the seats in the Senate and just under a third in the Assembly, are nowhere to be seen.The governor’s policy demands are sound, and it’s to her credit that she’s made them necessary for any budget deal.But the resulting deadlock means there’s been virtually no debate about the quarter-trillion-dollar spending plan Hochul and lawmakers are about to adopt.Hochul’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal totaled $252 billion (including federal aid and borrowing), a substantial increase from the $239 billion authorized last year.Democrats in the Assembly bid in at just over $256 billion; their Senate colleagues want to spend $259 billion, making the numbers work by, among other things, hiking taxes on businesses and higher-income households.Here’s where Albany’s moribund GOP has an opening.The faster-than-inflation spending hikes sought by the Democrats are based on revenue forecasts developed, with GOP involvement, two months ago.Their consensus was that GDP would rise 2.2% in 2025 and 2% in 2026, with wages and corporate profits rising even faster.But those projections went up in smoke when President Donald Trump’s tariff moves roiled markets and economic outlooks.

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