{"id":1333,"date":"2015-03-09T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2015-05-12T06:45:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T10:45:09","slug":"bad-ideas-in-the-governors-budget-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/bad-ideas-in-the-governors-budget-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD IDEAS IN THE GOVERNOR\u2019S BUDGET PLAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pace is picking up at the state Capitol.\u00a0 The budget is scheduled to be approved by April 1st<\/sup>.\u00a0 In order to meet that deadline, the state Senate and the state Assembly are likely to advance their own one-house budget plans this upcoming week.\u00a0 A week after that, both houses should begin a joint conference committee process to work out their differences while they negotiate with the governor.<\/p>\n

There are big issues to be addressed \u2013 from ethics to education.\u00a0 But there are a number of other issues that have not gotten attention and that, if enacted as proposed by the governor, would cause real problems for New Yorkers.\u00a0 Here are three of them.<\/p>\n

1.Breast cancer screening<\/span>.\u00a0 The governor proposes, once again, to combine a number of public health programs, and then slash the funding for them by a whopping 15%.\u00a0 One of those programs is the state\u2019s Cancer Services Program.\u00a0 The CSP provides free cancer screening for New Yorkers who lack health coverage.<\/p>\n

The single largest number of cancer screens is mammography (the program also covers colon and cervical cancer screenings).\u00a0 It is also one of the biggest programs on the governor\u2019s chopping block.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Tuition Assistance Program<\/span> (TAP).\u00a0 The governor\u2019s plan says that unless the legislature approves college financial aid for undocumented immigrants and tax credits for students attending private and parochial schools, there\u00a0will be no money in the budget for TAP<\/span>.<\/p>\n

TAP is the state\u2019s largest college financial aid program.\u00a0 Its maximum award is $5,165 for the state\u2019s lowest income college students.<\/p>\n

But the governor is proposing to eliminate funding for TAP unless the legislature approves the proposals for financial aid for undocumented immigrants and tuition tax credits.\u00a0\u00a0 You heard that correctly, under the governor\u2019s budget proposal there is a possibility that the TAP financial aid will be completely eliminated.\u00a0 All $1 billion in aid for over 300,000 New York college student recipients is at risk.<\/p>\n

It is mystifying why the governor would put such a popular \u2013 and necessary \u2013 program at risk, but he has.<\/p>\n

3. Environmental Protection Fund<\/span>.\u00a0 Created by the state legislature in 1993, the Environmental Protection Fund is a source of funding for environmental projects.\u00a0 Some examples of projects that the EPF funds are: purchasing land for the NYS Forest Preserve, restoring historic sites, conserving farmland, controlling invasive species, upgrading municipal sewage treatment plants, and paying for recycling programs.<\/p>\n

The EPF not only has significant environmental benefits, it has a positive economic impact as well.\u00a0 A 2012 study by the Trust for Public Land showed that for every $1 invested in land and water conservation through the EPF, the state received $7 in economic return.<\/p>\n

The EPF once received $255 million and was scheduled to increase to $300 million before the economic recession occurred.\u00a0 The EPF is currently funded at $162 million.<\/p>\n

The governor proposes to increase that funding by $10 million, but he does so by taking revenues generated by the state\u2019s program to regulate its greenhouse gases.The governor wants to divert $36 million of the revenues normally used to help reduce air pollution that causes global warming and use some of it for EPF.<\/p>\n

These are some of the disturbing elements of the governor\u2019s budget plan: Cuts to public health programs \u2013 including free breast cancer screening for the uninsured; political brinkmanship that puts at risk $1 billion of college financial aid; and, an environmental plan to “rob Peter to pay Paul” by increasing environmental spending by stealing it from a greenhouse gas reduction program.<\/p>\n

As the legislature begins its part of the budgetary deliberations, it must reject the governor\u2019s three big mistakes and instead improve these programs \u2013 not hurt them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pace is picking up at the state Capitol.\u00a0 The budget is scheduled to be approved by April 1st.\u00a0 In order to meet that deadline, the state Senate and the state Assembly are likely to advance their own one-house budget plans this upcoming week.\u00a0 A week after that, both houses should begin a joint conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}