Earlier this week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul proposed a $252 billion budget with plans to provide free schools meals for schoolchildren, ban the use of cellphones in school, and distribute tax relief checks. However, some Republican legislators are concerned by the size of the budget. State Assemblyman Scott Bendett of the 107th District says it doesn’t address the state’s largest problem: lagging population growth. WAMC spoke with the Republican, whose district includes parts of Albany, Rensselaer, Washington and Columbia counties, in North Greenbush on Thursday about the proposed budget.
My top priorities are to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to try and get them to understand that out migration is a huge issue that we're facing, and to try and come up with policies and different ideas to help keep people here in New York State and help improve their quality of life.
What do you think will help improve quality of life? Obviously, “out migration” is a big topic this year.
I think what we have to do, and here we are right now after Steve McLaughlin's press conference, I think what would be wise is to follow the model of Rensselaer County. When you cut taxes, when you grow the economy, you create an opportunity for people to have a better quality of life, and that's what I think the Governor has to do, as opposed to coming up with gimmicks and over taxing people and taking money from the left-hand pocket, putting it in the right-hand pocket and giving them a rebate back.
You're a ranking member on the food farm and Nutrition Policy Committee. Food Insecurity is especially prominent in some parts of your district. [Governor Kathy] Hochul has proposed free breakfast and lunch for all students, which would be paid for by raising taxes. Do you think that this is the way to approach food insecurity?
So, I have been a sponsor of that bill, and I don't think it's a bad thing to offer children free breakfasts and free lunch. But let's be honest about it for a second. Most kids don't like the school food. Most kids want lunch brought from home. Most kids really don't want to eat that food. So, in that aspect, we have to come up with a balanced plan. And you know, I don't know if that solves the issue of food insecurity for kids. It offers them the ability to not be hungry and to be able to focus on their schoolwork, which is very, very important, but I think that we have bigger fish to fry. When we have a food pantry in a facility with workers who take care of our most vulnerable disabled people because they don't make enough money those direct service providers, that's a problem. I don't know if free lunch and free breakfast for kids solves that problem.
And as a business owner, do you think locals’ emphasis on attracting large employers and corporate companies hurt small businesses throughout the state?
It absolutely does when those people get all these benefits to bring their businesses here, and people like me struggle on a day-to-day basis. I'm not too far removed from the days where I had to put my paychecks in my drawer and cash them at the end of the year, when I had the money to do so. Small businesses are really, really important in our society. They employ the majority of people, and in reality, we need to do a better job of offering them solutions. And the best way to do it is to cut red tape because we have the most red tape. We're the least business friendly state in the country. We're the highest tax state in the country. So, we need to come up with solutions by reducing red tape and helping our small businesses thrive.
Both you and the governor are focused on making New York affordable. Where do you align with any of your proposals, and where do you differ?
Well, we align, believe it or not, on a lot of issues. We want to help our most vulnerable people. We want to but where they really start to separate is on taking care of migrants and not taking care of veterans. Where we separate on is where we give the film industry billions and billions of dollars to come to New York City, and we only give our volunteer fire departments $30 million to fix themselves. Volunteer fire departments save our state billions of dollars and by only giving them $30 million to repair their fire houses is a real slap in the face.
And lastly, last year, the mitigation of retail theft was a priority for many Republicans, and this year's budget proposal includes the continued funding for technology upgrades for businesses. Where do you see these technologies being used to keep retail theft at bay?
Well, remember, there's chain stores and then there's individual mom and pop stores. Are individual mom and pop stores going to be able to pay for some of these technological advances? The fact is, is that we need to prosecute our criminals. We need to make it so that it's not a business of shoplifting, where people are held accountable, and that's what we're really looking for on our side of the aisle. Coming up with different technologies is great. We don't want people to steal, but we really have to hold the people accountable when they do do it.
New York State Assemblyman Scott Bendett is a Republican from the 107th district.