GOP lawmakers say budget fight is not over
Both houses of the State Legislature have voted to approve the state’s new budget, but two of Brooklyn’s Republican legislators said the fight over funding for health care programs and other expenditures is far from over.
Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-C-Bay Ridge-Staten Island) said she voted against portions of the budget “because it fell short on several critical issues.” Malliotakis said she was particularly upset that the state’s $135 billion spending plan did not allocate funds to save Long Island College Hospital or do anything to assist the fiscally troubled State University of New York Downstate Medical Center.
The budget contains cuts to state funded programs for the developmentally disabled, according to Malliotakis. “I stood with my assembly Republican colleagues in fighting cuts for programs and services supporting the developmentally disabled to the bitter end, even offering an amendment on the assembly floor that would have restored the funding in full. I am extremely disheartened that, rather than focusing on the waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid system, this budget targeted people with austism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy as a source of cost savings,” she said.