From WXXI news this is connections I'm Evan Dawson.

This hour we welcome a member of the New York State Assembly.

And we are discussing, well, a number of state issues and even some federal issues.

Certainly the effects of the federal budget on things like Medicaid, food stamps, and more.

We're going to talk about the recently passed New York state budget.

What's in it?

What is not why are we getting inflation relief checks?

What is that?

How much and when do we when does that happen?

We're going to talk about unemployment insurance.

We'll talk about Daniels law, affordability, and we'll take questions from you in the audience.

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Assembly member Harry Bronson from district number 138 is my guest.

Nice to see you again.

Thank you for being back with us.

Thanks for having me.

Oven.

Let me just start with just, kind of the the way that the federal budget, in the state budget, I mean, obviously the very separate documents, but more than any time in recent memory, whenever I've been talking to state lawmakers, it's been like, well, what how is the the big beautiful bill or whatever you want to call it, affecting you?

Did that factor into what you were doing on the state level?

And is there a short, easy answer to that for you?

Well, what we because we didn't know what was going to happen at the federal level.

We didn't anticipate the worst, we made sure that we kept, a number of dollars in the reserves for a rainy day fund, and they'll tie in to the unemployment insurance when we talk about that.

But we didn't actually do anything that would specifically address what we might see in the, federal budget.

Now, we have that signed into law on July 4th, I believe it was signed into law.

We have an idea of the harm that it's going to do for citizens across the country, but certainly to many, many, millions of New Yorkers.

And on Friday, the majority conference in the assembly, that would be the Democratic Conference.

We will be meeting with the speaker and be fully briefed on, what is in that budget, what's not in it.

And the times of potential cuts that will adversely impact New Yorkers.

What could come out of that conference meeting?

I mean, what do you expect to happen?

Well, what we the general numbers we know is that, for the most part, it's Medicaid cuts and the Snap food stamp, benefits.

Those are the two big, issues.

There's also some cuts related to workforce development dollars that we get and we pass through for, training a skilled workforce here in New York State on the Medicaid level.

We know that, the anticipated, cut for Medicaid is going to be around $13.5 billion.

That's a huge dollar amount.

We know that, around 1.5 million, New Yorkers will be removed from health care.

We also know that around 250,000, new Yorkers, these are people who are here legally but are not citizens, will be cut from the essential plan.

Those are things we know.

What I expect to get briefed on a little bit more detail on Friday is when will this impact happen?

There.

You know, the reports are indicating that some of this stuff doesn't kick in until after, 2000, 28.

So that's a couple of years.

And so, you know, we will have to we'll have to look at that and see what the impacts are going to be.

But to fill a, you know, a 15 or $13.5 billion cut is substantial.

And then on the snap, that's an additional, cut of almost $2 billion.

So that's a lot of money to, to replace.

So some of what's coming out of this federal bill is going to be deferred until 2026 or till after 2028.

What's happening then?

Is it just coincidence?

I don't think it's coincidence.

If you look at the election cycle, you you'll see, I, I might be cynical.

I've been doing this a long time, so perhaps I'm being.

Would this be the first time that you've seen politicians delay the impact of cuts until after an election?

Absolutely not.

It would not be the first time.

Okay.

And I also want to ask you a little bit about some of the framing around these issues.

It was 30 years ago when President Clinton was in the white House, that there was a lot of talk about welfare to work and work requirements.

And you hear similar language from Republicans in Washington this time around.

And recently, I heard, Republican members of Congress talking about how, you know, if you don't work, you shouldn't be piling up medicaid benefits, which is a strange way to describe Medicaid.

I mean, that's not UBI checks.

That's not food stamps.

You're not sitting here getting paid a stipend every month just to go spend on Medicaid.

It's there if you need it, right?

Yeah.

So that's a really good question and important for the listeners to understand that, you know, when we're talking about Medicaid, Medicaid is to provide health services for, low income individuals, people with disabilities and the elderly.

And so we, and two thirds of it are with people with disabilities and the elderly, you know, when folks go into nursing homes and they go on Medicaid to pay for their nursing home, stay, for the last few years of their lives, the bulk of Medicaid is for those folks, but so, so referring to it as benefits.

And, you know, you know, benefits accruing benefits is just misleading and disingenuous.

This is about providing health care services for people when they need it, so that we don't have people falling through the cracks.

And if you're going to cut Medicaid, the the result of that is the only way you can do that is make sure fewer people get services when they would need them.

Right?

That the the basic way to cut Medicaid is to not provide services, not provide the services.

The other way is more long term and certainly something we need to have discussions about because, some of your listeners, know I have been a long critic of our health care system.

I think it's a broken system.

If we can find ways to cut costs in the, in providing the services, that's another way to do that.

But that's a long term fix.

That might be a systemic fix, a systemic fix, and things of that nature here.

What the federal folks are doing led by the current president, is they're just cutting benefits.

And so and so more fewer people will get the benefits.

But but part of what they will argue, especially in the Republican caucus, whether it's in Washington or often in this state, is that we'll states like California in New York are spending way too much on Medicaid, that we are way too generous to broad.

The categories of services that we have are much broader than you see in different states, and that that's got to happen anyway.

Your colleague Josh Jensen, who did not want to see people cut off Medicaid, did say on this program that this might force a kind of a reckoning, a force, a reevaluation of what the state does and doesn't do in regards to Medicaid.

So how do you see that?

I would say to those who complain that we are too generous with who we cover under Medicaid and what services we provide?

Tell me who you want to cut.

You tell me what family you want to remove off from Medicaid.

Tell me.

For instance, we just expanded through a bill that I did Medicaid coverage for mental health services.

So tell me, tell me what child who needs psychotherapy and counseling?

Which child do you want to cut?

So we you know, oftentimes the hue and cry is there's waste and abuse.

Show it to me.

Then tell me where the waste and abuse is and I'll, I'm willing and open to take a look at that.

But that's not what this bill at the federal level does at all.

Doesn't look at waste and abuse at all.

It basically says we're going to cut, noncitizens and we're going to cut, individuals that we don't think are deserving because of this, premise that they should be, you know, working, 80 hours a, a month in order to receive Medicaid benefits.

And, you know, it's just it's we've never had Medicaid been in place for 60 years.

We have never, ever had a work requirement associated with Medicaid.

It's different.

We, briefly mentioned food stamps, that there has been a work requirement for a long time.

The, it's been expanded.

Additional work requirements under the recent federal bill.

Before it was for individuals, 55 years or younger.

Now they moved it up to I think it's 64, 65 years or younger.

How do you make the case that there should not be any work requirements for Medicaid?

What would you say?

People who are in Medicaid are not on Medicaid because they don't want to work.

People who are on Medicaid, many of whom are working, we, so there it's not a criterion that I think really gets at why we have Medicaid.

We have Medicaid as a safety net program.

We have it for people with disabilities.

We have it for the elderly.

And frankly, we have it for people who are working for employers who aren't willing to pay them.

The kind of money they need to provide for their families.

So, you know, I would say if you really want to address that, let's put more money in workforce development skill, you know, upskill people so that they can get better paying jobs.

Let's do what we've done oftentimes here in New York State, increase the minimum wage so that people, can provide for themselves in their family.

That's how you address that problem, and have a positive impact on Medicaid.

But you shouldn't just be saying, somebody should have to be verifying on a regular basis, which the bill says that they're working.

You know, 80 hours a month.

And this is where I think maybe your office may get a lot of calls.

And your colleagues, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece, in The Atlantic this week arguing that if you read what the federal government is doing in regards to Medicaid and requirements to get Medicaid, it is going to be extremely onerous with paperwork.

It's going to be confusing.

It's almost designed to be that.

And anybody who's ever had to fill out insurance paperwork, FMLA, paid leave, whatever, that maybe that's just because that's what I'm doing this week.

Assembly member.

And I'm going, oh my gosh, I mean, this is hard enough for me, right?

And so part of what Annie Lowry is arguing is that it is going to be so cumbersome on individuals just to, number one, file the paperwork and then stay current on it that they're going to lose.

They're not going to be able to complete the paperwork.

They're going to get knocked off on a technicality.

Do you think that's coming?

Yes.

So you know, we've seen this approach before.

And that is because of again, it's an attitude issue that exists among some elected officials.

Typically on the other party's, line, who, you know, they, they would prefer to create barriers to safety net programs and in that way keep people off at home, keep the costs down.

But, you know, we can't take this federal bill out of context.

This is a bill that is going to continue the tax rates that benefit billionaires in this country.

And how are they paying for it?

They're paying for it by preventing people from getting health care services.

That's what they're doing.

All right.

So let me put a bow on what's going on this week with the conference meeting on Friday morning.

Is there something that you plan to bring into the conference?

The A case that you that you might make for how the state can deal with this?

Yeah.

So, we, under, Kathy Hochul, Governor Hochul leadership, she has done a very good job of creating a significant reserve.

I believe the reserve, now that we've used some of it, which, with unemployment insurance, I believe that reserve is around $24 billion.

So one of the good things, if you can point to a good thing out of the big ugly bill, if you will, is that some of these cuts are delayed.

So using some of those rainy day funds, we have three different reserve funds, totaling the roughly 24 billion.

If we use some of those funds to offset some of the harm that's going to be caused by this.

And then we we do have to look for efficiencies.

So my colleague who who talked about, the, you know, you know, taking another look at this, maybe we can look and see if there's efficiencies we can find.

But I think most of it's going to have to come out of, reserves.

Okay.

Is the governor indicating a willingness to do that?

I have not heard that from the governor.

I don't know, okay.

This is the stuff we're going to be conferencing.

I'm Friday, I'm talking to assembly member Harry Bronson about not only the state budget, but the effects of the federal budget bills.

And, you know, some of those effects that that may be coming, whether that's delayed or down the line or now.

So, let's talk a little bit more about.

So unemployment insurance is an important issue to you.

What do you want people to understand about it?

Yeah.

So unemployment, insurance is an important issue to most New Yorkers and are working, New Yorkers.

Unemployment insurance is a, program that's funded by employer taxes to provide for benefits for individuals who become unemployed.

Sometimes because of, a faulty business model that fails, but more often because of the economy, but certainly unemployed at no fault of, the employee.

So we've set up the system many, many years ago.

It's, both a federal system and a state system.

You, as a past employer, you pay federal taxes and you pay state taxes to fund the unemployment insurance.

So during Covid, because the economy basically shut down, businesses like mine or coffee house, we had to close it for a period of time.

Then we had to reduce hours.

We couldn't have the volume because we had to reduce the number of customers.

Folks had to lay off their employees.

Not because the employer made a bad decision, but they had to lay them off.

We borrowed from the federal government because our, state unemployment insurance fund, became insolvent.

So we had to borrow $10 billion from the federal government.

And that's a requirement.

You have to do that.

It's to meet the benefit needs.

We did that.

Employers have been paying down the Prince of all and to the tune of, this year would have been $175 million in interest that employers would have to pay down.

And if once the debt gets to be five years, then the rate of paying down the principal increases.

So whatever employers were paying this year, principal next year, that was going to double.

And so, through my work and the speaker's work, we brought the AfL-CIO labor union, together with the Business Council to show that, we needed to pay down this debt to help businesses, in particular small businesses.

But at the same time, if you have a debt to the federal government regarding unemployment insurance, you cannot increase benefits.

So our benefits, even though statutorily they were supposed to go up each year, our benefits have been have been at the 2019 level.

That's $504 a week maximum benefit.

So that's not enough for a family to live on.

If during that transition from one job to the next.

So it would be beneficial, though, for workers to pay off the debt because then we could increase the benefit level.

So what we did in this bill is, authorize the governor, to pay down the debt, to the tune of $6.2 billion.

We then authorized her to use 1.8 billion to make sure that the insurance fund stayed solvent after what's anticipated is going to be a downturn in the economy.

Then we raise the weekly maximum benefit to, $896.

So it went from 504 to $896, which is where it would have been if statutorily we could have raised it each year.

And then we also changed the taxing mechanism, to make the insurance fund likely more solvent in the future by increasing the amount of the taxes the employers have to pay that was agreed to by labor.

It was agreed to by the Business Council.

Ultimately, the governor, saw the the wisdom of it, as she said, you know, she created this rainy day fund.

But it's raining and it's time for us to pay this down.

So we did $8 billion, the, fried two Fridays ago, 6.2 was to pay off the debt.

October 1st.

The benefit will increase to the $896 or $869, rather.

And then, we have that 1.8 billion if, if needed, to make sure that it stays safe.

And as many of your listeners know, a lot of economists are predicting that we're going to go into at least a downward turn in the economy, possibly a recession.

So this will help those workers.

Okay.

Talking to some member, Harry Bronson, about this recent budget and some things that are going on in Albany, this is a part of a regular series of conversations.

And you've heard from some of the Assembly members, colleagues in recent days, Republican Josh Jensen, tomorrow, Republican Steven Hawley, we've heard Jen Lunsford I'm going to forget somebody.

I shouldn't start listening.

We've we invite them all and we're glad to be able to talk at length.

I'll get to some of your questions coming up here.

Let me just hit a couple of other points that are on my list here, including Daniels Law.

That's something that's come up a number of times here.

Remind listeners what Daniels law is first, as I'm a member.

So in, March of March 23rd, 2020, I believe Daniel Prude was the gentleman who was suffering a mental health crisis and substance use crisis.

And, the police intervened and ultimately he died as a result of that intervention.

So working with advocacy groups, I and Senator Summer Brouk introduced a bill, a bill called Daniels Law, that would have changed the way we respond to someone having a mental health crisis from one of control, enforced by police to one of compassion and care by mental health providers, with the idea that it would be, the initial response, unless there's some danger, indicated that it would be mental health practitioners that would respond.

We tried to de-escalate the situation.

There would be peer counselors there, so trusted faces, trusted voices there.

We haven't been able to get that law passed, but we were able, to budget cycles ago to get a task force put in place.

The task force was supposed to come out with its recommendations at the end of this year.

Very, unusual.

They actually came up with their recommendations at the end of last year, December 2024.

And they came up with a couple of recommendations.

One was to, you know, fund pilot programs.

And then the other was to create, a technical assistance group, that would help localities develop how they're responding to mental health and substance use crises.

So and this year, we, funded $2 million for that technical advisory group to help localities and, $6 million for pilot programs.

I have a commitment that one of those pilots is going to be here in Rochester.

Hopefully, we will, be able to maybe work with the city, which already has process persons in crisis, their pick team, which is very similar to Daniel's law model.

It sounds exactly the same, but very similar.

Yeah, yeah.

With pick teams.

The goal is to have mental health practitioners or experts show up, you know, with police and support and available if needed, but not leading.

And so I've heard a number of things here, and I want to make sure I understand your position on this.

I have no interest in relitigating the death of Daniel Prude.

I want to talk more generally about mental health response.

Often I hear exactly what you're saying, which is that boy.

Police are sent to a lot of calls to end up being a mental health call that might not require an armed member of the law, and that might end up escalating unnecessarily.

And I also hear from police officers who say, you have no idea how dangerous some of these calls might end up.

Not all of them, but sometimes they end up pretty dangerous.

And you may want or need a police officer there.

So can can police be better trained?

Can this become part of police training where they become that?

No, I, I think that there needs to be additional police training for sure.

Because there will be times when they're going to be on scene.

There may also be a situation.

I actually experienced this personally, out in, North Chile.

I'm just driving to the store and there was an, gentleman who was walking in the middle of the street, clearly intoxicated or high or something, stumbling around.

Looked like he was a homeless person.

And, a sheriff's patrol car happened to go by and stopped to assist this gentleman.

And so there's going to be times when they're going to be the first responder.

There's this it's going to happen.

So having additional training for de-escalation and things of that nature are important.

The problem is police officers are trained in force.

They are trained and taking control of the situation in which is necessary oftentimes.

But it may not.

And oftentimes it's not necessary when someone's suffering a mental health crisis.

They're the way this is set up, whether it's a nine, eight, eight call, the mental health crisis line or whether it's A211 call, we have or 911 call.

Rather, we have just dispatchers who are trained very well and determining is this a dangerous situation where I need to send law enforcement, or is this something that we send the team to?

So this is how it's modeled.

And then, if if it looks like someone is in danger of harming themselves or harming someone else, under the the pilot program, then law enforcement would be called Daniels law.

I would point out, though, is a little bit more restrictive.

Daniels law does not include harm of self to call law enforcement.

It only ink because that typically is de-escalation.

It only includes harm to a third party.

So this isn't exactly what we have in the proposed legislation, but it's it's similar.

Who opposes it?

The system, you know, the police, there's a lot of police who support it.

There's a lot of police who say, I don't want to go to a mental health crisis if somebody is not being dangerous, I don't want to be.

What about the Rochester police chief?

I as far as I can tell, I have not talked to him personally, but but since he's supportive of the pick program, I would imagine he'd be supportive of this.

I we have had conversations with the mayor.

The mayor is interested in, potentially doing a pilot.

We'd have to have further conversations and see, where that goes.

But, you know, the opposition is the system.

We're trying to change the system, and people don't like change.

I will point out, though, there are models of this that have been successful across the country, some of them for several decades.

So we know this works.

And what about your Republican colleagues?

I would imagine the vast majority of them would oppose it.

On what grounds?

I think because they're they see it as an affront to law enforcement, which it really is not intended to be that at all.

We we ask our police officers to do so very much.

And, you know, this is one area where there might be a better approach, you know, alleviate, some of their workload.

They can go to more dangerous situations and, and keep the public safe.

In that way, we're talking to Assembly member Harry Bronson from district number 138.

We've got to take this only break of the hour.

We've got phone calls and emails from you.

We're going to be talking about, other issues related to affordability.

We're going to talk about.

I am curious to know about things like an expanded child tax credit, free school meals, support for child care in the New York state budget, this inflation relief check business, and a lot more with Assembly member Harry Bronson coming up.

Coming up in our second hour, if you're a fan of old houses, of houses and homes and buildings with character, maybe something from what seems like a bygone era before tracked neighborhoods and cookie cutters, there's a new book that is designed to make sure everybody, even if you're not that handy, everybody knows how to preserve historic houses.

Older homes author Steve Jordan joins us next hour.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson on the phone.

First, this is Bill in Rochester with Assembly member Harry Bronson.

Hi, Bill.

Go ahead.

Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

Hey, I saw a report, that indicate that the, BVP doesn't actually cut Medicaid spending, but just reduces the trajectory of the Medicaid spending.

Back to the levels that where it was at in 2020.

So, So it seems a little disingenuous to call the cut.

And also, personally, I don't have a problem with a worker requirement at 20 hours a week for people to qualify for Medicaid myself.

But, you know, that's just me, obviously.

So I was wondering what your what your comments were with regards to that.

Yeah.

Bill, thank you for the phone call.

Go ahead and tell me.

Member.

Thank you, Bill.

And it's a cut.

The the reality is in New York State, it's around $13.5 billion that we will be receiving even less in federal Medicaid dollars to help New Yorkers who need health care.

You can spin it by saying we're trying to move it back to 20, 20 levels.

You know, six years ago, or you can, realize that by moving it a back, you know, it actually is cutting it to earlier years.

Yeah.

I guess I would just say the bill, I appreciate the desire for an accurate description here.

I do think what you're describing, Bill, is a distinction without a difference here.

If if you make $50,000 a year and your employer says every year you're gonna get a 3% increase, cost of living increase, whatever it is, that'll be an automatic pay increase for you every year.

And then ten years later, your employer says, well, we're not going to cut your pay.

We're just going to put you back to where where you were ten years ago.

So it's going to be effectively the same that we did before, but we're not going to call it a pay cut.

You would certainly view it as a pay cut.

That would it would effectively be a pay cut in a country where the population is growing every year.

If you take a spending level for Medicaid and you go back five years, ten years, whatever number you want, fewer people are going to get it for a number of different reasons.

So it's a cut it to cut because and Republicans are they've kind of danced around it.

Josh Hawley for a while was saying we can't cut Medicaid.

We can't cut Medicaid.

Then he signs the bill, and now says, well, maybe it's not a cut.

I mean, maybe we could do without cutting.

But most of the projections indicate that every state will see almost every county.

We'll see fewer people getting Medicaid.

So, I mean, I just I hear what you're saying, but I think it about the difference regarding the work requirement.

This is something we already talked about.

And, Bill, I think a lot of people may have very different views on this.

I think just a wide range of views.

And if your view is that work requirements should be there, I mean, that's a valid view to have you heard the Assembly member explain why he thinks for Medicaid.

That's a bad idea.

What about for other things?

What about for food stamps?

What about for other how about work requirements for other benefits, so forth.

Food stamps.

We have, I believe, always had a work requirement.

The change in this, bill that was just passed by the federal government increases, those who would have a work requirement, to include, folks who are 55 to 64 years old before you only had a work requirement up to the age of 55.

So it included that it also included, families that have children older than 13 in the household would have a work requirement, whereas before they did not have that work requirement.

Bill, thank you for the phone call.

It's 844295 Talk listeners to join the program with Harry Bronson from the New York State Assembly.

(844) 295-8255 on the YouTube chat section.

If you're watching on YouTube of the Sky news YouTube channel, or you can email connections at that.

Org Dallas emails a question about Daniels law with a good question.

Who determines if a person is violent before the cops come?

Yeah, that's an excellent question to Alice.

So there are protocols that we're currently using in our 911 and nine eight dispatch station.

That determines what kind of response is necessary.

Violence is included in that determination.

So we have very skilled people asking questions of whoever's calling in the emergency to make that determination.

We also the Daniels Law Task force, I neglected to mention earlier in their review, they not only did public hearings across the state, including right here in Rochester, but they interviewed and looked at programs from across the country.

And there have been programs that have been very successful for several decades, and they have developed the mechanism for that determination of whether or not this is a violent situation where we indeed do need to send law enforcement, or is it a situation where we send mental health professionals with peer counselors so they can de-escalate and respond and, a form of compassion and care?

David, in Rochester emails to ask what percentage of Medicaid is for non citizens.

Do we know we do.

I believe it is 224,000 individuals in New York state.

Out of how many the.

Well, I don't know how many.

Let me see.

A probably around 7 million Medicaid recipients in in New York state.

So it's only one.

Oh, boy.

Live.

The math on the air is really good.

It's a third a third of the population.

Okay, okay.

So it's not a majority.

It's not a majority, but it's a it's a it's significant.

And keep in mind what I had said earlier, the two thirds of those folks are people with disabilities or the elderly.

Okay.

I hope that answers your question there, David.

Alex emails to ask who were you rooting for, Cuomo or a mom?

Danny in New York City, your colleague Zoran Mamdani from the New York State Assembly, of course, won that Democratic mayoral primary.

The former governor, Andrew Cuomo, was also contending, where was your rooting interest?

So I you know, that's a tough question.

What is it tough?

Oh it's tough.

I well, I'll share a funny story.

So we just talked about the unemployment insurance, measure, which I was one of the leads in.

And I'm very proud of getting labor and management to come together with that.

But once you know, the speaker announced a conference, we've got $8 billion.

Harry did it.

Zora walked up to me in the hallway afterwards.

He said, Harry, $8 billion.

Way to go, comrade.

And I'm like, comrade.

Really?

And so when I shared that with the speaker, he said, Harry, why don't you tell them it's for small business and not for workers?

So, Zora is a friend of mine, and I, you know, his policies are more extreme than mine.

I, I want him to be successful.

He's a good guy.

And his heart's in the right place.

And we'll see if his.

It sounds like you don't think he will be successful.

I don't know, you know, it's a lot different being an executive than it is being a legislator.

He's not been a legislator all that long.

But he's got some.

I mean, you asked me the question, who opposes Daniels law and my answer was those who don't want transformative change.

Zero is going to try transformative change at almost every level of New York City government.

So that's going to be tough.

And I I'm hopeful, I couldn't root for Andrew Cuomo because of my experiences with Andrew Cuomo.

Not good experiences, negative experiences with Andrew Cuomo.

Okay.

Are your policies more aligned with Cuomo than Mamdani?

He's probably more moderate than I am.

I'm okay.

So you're in between those.

But you're hopeful that Mamdani will prove success.

I'm hopeful.

I'm hopeful.

Yes.

And I do.

You know, I have I I've watched him grow over the last few years and be able to what he exhibited in his campaign really put coalitions together.

And so, you know, he's getting endorsements left and right now, and it's going to be a test to see if, if, know, how can he govern New York City with a socialist kind of perspective of the world?

I don't know, talking to some member, Harry Bronson.

And so let's get back to some of the things in this budget.

I mentioned that there is, a set of inflation relief checks coming.

When are they coming?

Who's getting what?

The, it's upwards of $400 for a family.

And, you know, you asked me the question about the timing of these things.

The timing of this will be right before the next, state election.

Inflation relief check.

Yeah.

Next year.

I think it's next year.

Make me not cynical about that.

Oh, I I'm cynical about it.

I didn't want to do these, actually.

So let me let me tell you how this works.

So we had, significant revenue increases from sales taxes because the economy was going so strong.

Lots of sales people paid sales taxes.

That's not revenue you can count on on the future.

So the government's argument, which I kind of get was we can't use those funds.

$3 billion for on going, reoccurring expenses.

So let's give it back to the families who paid into the sales taxes.

Right.

So, you know, so that was an approach I would have preferred using it to help offset childcare costs and things of that nature.

But, the refund checks will be coming, and, so it will help families, but, you know, $400 what, you know, maybe help you with a couple of utility bills and, maybe a little bit of food things of that nature, but it's not reoccurring.

So it's not going to be a one time thing.

It's a one time next year.

I think it's next year.

I think.

So don't don't don't hold me to it.

Okay, I'm wrong, but I think it is okay.

I understand how nonplused you are, but are you going to come back right before the election next time and tout these things after telling me on this program that you're cynical about it?

I sure will love it.

You understand why people get cynical about you?

Understand?

I do understand election.

And you're handing out checks.

Yeah, I look, I under every governor since I've been in office, we've done that.

And when I was on staff with the Assembly, we've done it.

I, I'm not a big fan of the approach, but let me tell you what I am a big fan of.

And this is the exact opposite of what happened at the federal government.

So at the federal government with the big ugly bill, what they did is they cut benefits, Medicaid in particular, but other, you know, food stamps, other benefits, so that they could pay for tax benefits for billionaires here at the state.

We did the exact opposite in this budget.

We expanded, the millionaires tax.

So this is anyone earning 1.1 million or more.

We expanded that because it was going to sunset.

We expanded that to 2032.

All right.

So and that is to then offset, the cuts that we have for, families.

So, a joint filer of 323,000, dollars or less will be at the very lowest tax rate in the state.

That's significant.

And we also continued the middle, income earner, tax benefits, through this.

So what we did, instead of, cutting benefits to benefit the wealthy, we, that the wealthy folks in this state, $1.1 million in income a year, that's pretty high.

But they have to pay their fair share, so that other families could have tax relief.

1.1 million in new income, new in career.

What's the rate of tax that they'll pay then?

I don't know that off the top of my head.

Okay.

Let me get back to your phone calls.

Carol in Canandaigua.

I'm with assembly member Harry Bronson.

Go ahead.

Carol.

Hi, Evan.

Thanks for taking my call.

I'm a special ed teacher, and, maybe you've covered this already.

I know for a fact that districts depend on Medicaid reimbursement for most of our special ed services.

How will this bill impact that?

That is a great question, and thank you for pointing that out.

So the way it potentially can impact it is since we're going to have $13.5 billion less from the federal government, we've got to find a way to spread that across.

But, I'm so glad you pointed out, because most listeners, when they think of Medicaid and they think of health care services and helping people with disabilities, we don't also include, the special needs students in our, schools.

So I don't know if there's going to be a direct impact or if there is a direct impact when that's going to happen.

If you were listening in the beginning, we're going to be getting a briefing on this more, on Friday.

But the point is pulling $13.5 billion out of the system.

You know, we're going to have to find, savings, that some we don't have the revenues to pay for those services.

Anything you want to add, Carol?

Well, I do, you know, in some of you may already know this, but the early intervention services that are provided at the, primary elementary level are in hopes that kids don't need to have services as they get older.

So it's I, I don't know, it's baffling.

Yeah.

Carol, your concern is absolutely understandable and justified.

We have, increased early childhood intervention over the last, couple of years.

That money's been slow to get to those providers.

But you're you're 100% correct.

If we can intervene sooner, then that actually will not only benefit the child, which is absolutely wonderful, but it also has cost savings in the system.

Isn't isn't this every year the bipartisan issue that still somehow doesn't get solved?

Yeah, we put money into it and then it didn't get released from the, the second floor of the executive branch.

So we're fighting together.

Explain what that means.

Explain what that means.

So we we appropriate money, which means we authorize the spending.

But the agencies that are in charge of of these areas, they have to actually, work with the comptroller's office to cut the checks.

And the latter didn't happen with early childhood intervention.

Okay.

But when I say explain, like, why?

How is that how?

This is government not working.

I think it's it's government not working.

If, you know, the legislature authorized and appropriated the money, it's up to the executive branch through agencies, to expand the money.

Sometimes they do it intentionally to, to delay, you know, on their budget sheets with the revenue and the expense.

I don't know exactly what happened with, with, early childhood intervention, but it doesn't sound like so.

So six months ago, five months ago, the new administration comes in and the president starts talking about impoundment, about saying, well, yeah, Congress decided to fund such and such, but we're just not going to spend the money.

We're the executive branch.

We control the purse strings, and empowerment is an issue.

And the federal government that has been going to court when presidents have these authoritarian urges to control it for decades now, presidents never win because they're not supposed to impound money that the legislative branch sets aside is this an empowerment issue?

It is not, the the president's representation of how that works is, is inaccurate.

And at the federal level, Congress controls the purse right at the state level.

That's not true.

The legislature does not control the purse at the state level.

At the state level, the executive controls the purse.

And so there's a distinction at the different level, but they do have at the state level, they have absolute control at the at we just appropriate we authorize we cannot dictate.

They spent just approved.

This is a bipartisan issue.

I just want to listen briefly to what Assemblymember Josh Jensen said on this program last week about this.

Once again, nothing happens.

Diddly squat, diddly squat, diddly squat.

The failure to solve the systemic failures of early intervention in New York State is probably the single most frustrating thing I've encountered in my five years in state elected office.

Isn't there bipartisan agreement?

Yeah.

On this issue?

Yeah.

And yet nothing happens.

You know, who do you blame?

Everyone.

He's very frustrated in that clip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You share his frustration I do I've, I've spoken to, Assembly Member Johnson about this.

It's really important to him, for many, many reasons.

Yeah.

I, and I share his frustration.

I know the community here locally.

The children's agenda and others share his frustration.

And, you know, we'll keep we'll keep working at it.

But this is definitely a failure on the part of state government, and we need to correct it.

Tell me a little bit more about what you think the state can do with affordability as an issue.

Is there anything else happening that people should know about?

Well, we're, you know, we have the child tax credit that we expanded, some of the eligibility requirements and things of that nature.

We have the, housing access voucher program didn't get what we, the Assembly has been pushing for years and years and years under the leadership of chair, Hevesi.

But, we got a pilot program and I think $50 million, to, set up pilots across the state to see if we can do housing vouchers, to help folks who are homeless or running the risk of being, homeless.

We, put more money into.

And this is kind of in the housing context as well, but more money into, helping people who will fall behind on their utility bills.

More money for, to help people in connection with their, mortgage payments and things of that nature.

So, you know, assistance, you know, childcare dollars increase that, not as significantly as we did a year ago.

But still a slight increase in child, subsidy dollars.

We have a pilot program here in Monroe County pushed by, the county executive and the mayor, $3 million for, a pilot program in connection with the benefits class, which I know you've spoken about on the show before, to help people when they are, are increasing their earnings so that they don't lose their benefits so rapidly that it puts them into financial despair and free school meals.

Free school meals.

Thank you for bringing that up.

So we've expanded that for breakfast and lunch across the state.

So that's going to help a lot of families, with providing food for, for their family, for their children.

When does that take effect?

I'm not sure.

On the effective date I did, like maybe not this fall.

Might be later down.

I think it's I think it's pretty quick on that one.

Okay.

How significant of an issue was that for you?

Well, a lot of our schools were already doing, a lot of food, provisions.

But it's significant because, you know, as your listeners know who have heard me before, you know, I grew up in poverty.

I know what it's like not to have food on the table.

And, you know, when our young children, students, when they're going to school and they're hungry, they're not in a place to learn.

Certainly it creates a barrier at some level.

So making sure that they have both breakfast and lunch, helps those students with their education.

And I think education is the great equalizer.

As many people have said, it helps people, really become all they can be.

So we have to make sure that our young people are in a place to be educated, Sy says.

While I understand the concern with waste, fraud and abuse, the problem with barriers to social assistance programs such as work requirements is that it only keeps people on those programs because they are struggling simply to maintain what minimal benefits they have simply to survive, rather than putting their efforts on improving their life with a better job or mental health, or maintaining vital medication.

I vividly remember my mother spending all of her time and effort simply trying to get insurance companies to reimburse expenses and schools and government agencies to provide needed support, and a sister with three kids who have various disabilities.

That's from c y. Yeah.

I tend to agree with you.

The as I said earlier, I don't support the work requirements.

I think it's a distraction and it's just a way of creating a barrier to get more people off from the the assistance that they really need, the health care benefits they really need.

I think the better way is kind of tied into your statement is let's invest in workforce development.

Let's get people upskilled so that they can get better paying jobs so that they no longer have to rely on Medicaid dollars.

They can rely either on employer funded, health care system or get into the Affordable Care Act, exchange system.

All right.

We're at the end of the hour.

So I get to ask you what I've asked some of your colleagues just to get a little weird.

The federal bill prevents states for the next decade from trying to regulate.

I.

Do you think we're living in a simulation?

Sometimes it feel.

Sometimes.

Sometimes.

Should the states be able to regulate I we're working on it.

We've we've had some colleagues have been on this program talking about this, but is the federal effort going to prevent you from being able to do that?

It has the potential of doing that.

Yes, we have to.

We're will continue to look at that.

But I think the state should have some say.

And I that's something that we'll continue to follow to as as perhaps those provisions take effect.

We'll see what states can and can't do.

Sam, remember, we covered a lot of ground.

There's always a lot to talk about with you, and you're always generous with your time for our audience and for us right here at six.

I thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Evan.

Assembly member Harry Bronson, representing district number 138.

More connections coming up in a moment.

Oh.

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