"Life is options and we don't have any good ones,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said during a press call on Wednesday about federal stimulus talks being stalled again.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on the U.S. Senate to stop negotiating on a stimulus deal and focus instead on confirming his Supreme Court justice pick.
New York, which lost more than $14 billion in revenue from fighting COVID-19, has been desperately seeking aid from the federal government. Without this money, local governments, schools and hospitals would see huge funding cuts.
"The deficit is so large," Cuomo said. "The only way to get close to closing that deficit within the state's abilities, you would have to do a tax increase, cut expenses and you would have to borrow. This would do tremendous economic damage to the state."
Cuomo says he is waiting until after the election for either Joe Biden to win the presidential election or for Democrats to gain the majority in the Senate before making any decisions that would “cause damage.”
“There is no 'whoops, never mind,' " he said.
The positive COVID-19 infection rate remains high in hot spot clusters throughout New York. For the 20 hot spot zip codes, the positive infection rate is at 5.1%. Statewide, the positive infection rate is at 1.25%.
The state conducted 108,246 coronavirus tests yesterday. Hospitalizations increased yesterday by more than 40 patients to 748.
Eight people died from COVID-19 yesterday.