Metro

Cuomo to business execs: I’ve governed as a fiscal conservative

With the Democratic primary behind him, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday during a speech to business executives that he’s governed as a fiscal conservative.

Cuomo, who is running for a third term, said his policies of imposing a cap on state spending and a 2 percent property tax cap on local governments and school districts have paid dividends for the state.

“We have the spending down and functionality way up,” Cuomo told the New York State Business Council during an address in Bolton Landing in Lake George.

“Governors Pataki, Spitzer and Paterson all tried and failed on the property tax cap — we got it done.”

He said the rate of state spending growth during his eight years in office was under 2 percent, lower than all his predecessors going back to and including Nelson Rockefeller in the 1970s.

Cuomo’s Republican challenger, Marc Molinaro, who spoke to the business group Monday, vowed to find a way to slash property taxes by nearly 30 percent if he becomes governor.

But Cuomo charged Molinaro’s plan was “a sham” because his challenger wants to shift billions of dollars in Medicaid costs from localities to the state, which would trigger massive state tax hikes or spending cuts.

Fiscal watchdog E.J. McMahon of the Empire State Center for Public Policy said Cuomo’s 2 percent property tax cap has been a “real” achievement.

He questioned Cuomo’s claim of keeping spending under 2 percent without ”budget gimmickry,” but agreed it was “relatively low by historical standards.”

During his Democratic primary battle with Cynthia Nixon, Cuomo talked up his liberal policies opposed by many business leaders, including a hike in the minimum wage and imposing a paid family leave law.

He made no mention of those proposals Tuesday.

New York has among the highest state and local government combined tax rates in the country.

But Cuomo said, “Every person in this state has lower tax rate today than the day I was elected.”

Cuomo trimmed corporate taxes and slightly lowered income tax rates — but largely maintained high rates on the wealthy that were imposed during the 2008-09 recession, before he took office.

The governor doubled down on his upstate economic development program that has been mired in scandal, leading to pay-to-play corruption convictions against his former top aide and confidante Joe Percoco and key economic adviser Alain Kalayeros, and several construction executives and campaign donors.

Instead, Cuomo stressed that overall his administration has invested $44 billion in upstate New York that has bolstered Buffalo and other regions. “We focused on upstate New York like a laser … I’m proud of that. I want that in my eulogy,” he said.

He claimed economic growth has been strong across the state, though McMahon said if the upstate economy were treated as a separate state, it would be among the bottom nationally.

When asked why people upstate are leaving, Cuomo suggested it was because of the colder weather, not economic conditions.

Cuomo touted infrastructure projects including the new Mario Cuomo/Tappan Zee Bridge and airport reconstruction as better preparing the state for future growth.

He also plugged his Excelsior Scholarship Program that provides tuition relief to middle-income students attending public colleges.

While the governor said all the economic indicators are “pointing the right direction,” he cautioned that the federal law approved by President Trump and Congress that limits state and local tax deductions to $10,000 puts a crimp in the progress.

He urged business executives to lobby Congress and the president to restore the full deductions.

The Molinaro campaign had a ready response to Cuomo calling his property tax cut plan a “sham” and “shell game” for recommending the state assume the local share of Medicaid costs.

An early “major proponent” of such a takeover was Cuomo’s dad, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, the Molinaro campaign pointed out.