After receiving a cake from Assemblyman Kevin Cahill in celebration of his 80th birthday, state Sen. William Larkin, R, C-Cornwall-on-Hudson, told Ulster County Chamber of Commerce members that Gov. Eliot Spitzer”™s proposed budget would create a fiscal burden on residents and businesses by adding new fees.
“He”™s telling people there”™ll be no new taxes, but the actual message is fee increases and loop closures,” said Larkin, who estimated the extra costs to be equivalent to $1.4 billion more in taxes.
Larkin spoke at the chamber”™s breakfast Feb. 21, which was held at the Holiday Inn in Kingston.
In the health care sector, “we”™re going to lose key personnel” as the result of the governor”™s proposal to implement a $50,000 licensing fee to every doctor in the state. That”™s on top of a 14 percent increase in medical malpractice premium rates for 2008, the largest increase ever. “You do that and there won”™t be any doctors left in the state,” Larkin said.
The senator said that one obstetrician-gynecologist in Orange County pays $175,000 a year for her insurance policy. In Connecticut, she”™d pay only $35,700 for the same policy. “Something”™s wrong in New York,” he said.
Larkin also took aim at the governor”™s proposal to raise the fees levied on for-profit HMOs, by charging them a 1.75 percent premium tax, which would be passed on to policyholders. And he said that $500,000 that had been appropriated for Ulster BOCES last year wasn”™t in the governor”™s proposed budget for 2008, resulting in a funding shortfall. Also at risk in the proposed budget are funds for the county”™s industrial development agency, which jeopardizes four projects in Ulster County that are being financed by the Ulster County IDA. “You”™re talking about 625 new employees” that might not get hired due to lack of IDA funding, he said.
The viability of ambitious initiatives, such as the governor”™s proposal to expand health care insurance for children, was under question because of lack of funding, said Larkin.
Larkin said a proposal to sell off the state lottery for $40 billion was shortsighted. “Who knows what $40 billion will be worth in 20 years,” he said. “I think it”™s dumb.”
And while he supports the plan for a $650 million development combining a large hotel with a race track in Sullivan County, which would employ 2,500 construction workers and 3,000 permanent employees, he questioned whether Albany would provide the leadership needed to get the project off the ground. “Talk is cheap, and action takes leadership. I”™ll believe it when I see it.”
