Senator takes state’s pulse
Urges returning Senate to GOP next year
A veteran state legislator offered his take last week on the state of the state and doesn’t like what he sees, either economically or politically. GOP Sen. John Bonacic said voters should rethink their decision to oust his party from power in the Senate come November 2010 or risk turning the state into “Massachusetts.”
New York state is temporarily better off in the wake of approval of the federal stimulus plan, said Bonacic, a Republican representing the upper Hudson Valley. But he fears it only buys the Empire State a two-year respite from having to grapple with multibillion-dollar deficits. “We’re in a crisis mode,” Bonacic said, adding that with the demise of fortunes on Wall Street, “We have lost our golden goose.”
Politically, he predicts that unless Republicans can re-take the majority of seats in the state Senate in 2010, the next election cycle, “This state will be like Massachusetts,” Bonacic said. “It will be lost forever.”
Bonacic, a six term Senator representing the 42nd Senate district in Ulster, Orange, Sullivan and Delaware counties was addressing a subdued breakfast meeting of the Ulster County Republican Committee. In the wake of November’s election, where Democrats gained a two-seat majority in the state Senate, Bonacic is adjusting to his new career track in the Senate minority, part of a state Legislature infamous for delegating minority parties to second-class status.
Bonacic is a pragmatic legislator and sought to outline what New York state will receive from the federal stimulus package. “This is the Obama gamble,” he said of the roughly $780 billion federal stimulus package, which Bonacic reported will provide $26 billion directly to New York State government.
“We will use the stimulus money because it is there,” Bonacic said. Given that New York state is facing a budget deficit of about $15 billion for its next fiscal year, Bonacic said that the stimulus funding will stave off disaster. “What will probably save this state is the stimulus package,” he said.
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