For months, when discussing the potential for sweeping cuts to Medicaid and education as part of President Donald Trump’s agenda, and now in the form of his so-called "Big Beautiful Bill," New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has told reporters who question him over the state’s response to ask "the seven Republican members of Congress," why they would entertain such slashing of resources.
“In New York, those destructive actions will result in a loss of 13.5 billion for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplace,” Heastie insisted at a Monday morning news conference with Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins urging the U.S. Senate to provide the necessary lifeline to avoid the cuts. “One-point-five million New Yorkers could lose their health insurance.”
“We’re asking the U.S. Senate to stop these cuts,” he said before instructing reporters to ask New York’s Republican Congressional delegation, “why we’re even in this position.”
Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not, just a short walk away in the territory of the Senate minority reporters were given a convenient opportunity to at least ask one of them without even having to fire off an email.
Joining Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt and Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay and members of the Republican conference for what was essentially a group venting session over the state budget and legislative session run by Democrats, Rep. Elise Stefanik defended the cuts as part of reforming the program and bashed New York for providing care for undocumented immigrants.
“We should strengthen Medicaid, get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse which is rampant — over $20 billion in New York, and not fund these programs for illegals,” she said.
At the event, she blasted the "bloated" state budget as “anti-worker, anti-family, anti-farm, anti-small business, anti-manufacturer and anti-law enforcement.”
“Kathy Hochul and far-left Democrats have once again failed New Yorkers with this year’s legislative session,” she said.
As Stefanik for governor talk has persisted, the congresswoman seemed eager to appear engaged with state-level issues, one floor up from the office she would occupy.
When asked by Spectrum News 1’s Kate Lisa when she would announce if she will ultimately run to topple Gov. Kathy Hochul, Stefanik said to “stay tuned.”
“I’m making a decision in the coming months,” she said.
She wasted no time deploying her go-to "worst governor in America" line against Hochul multiple times in her remarks. Much like Trump who once declared that he was dragging and dropping his favored "crooked" nickname from Hillary Clinton to Joe Biden, Stefanik also called former Gov. Andrew Cuomo the ‘worst governor in America’ during his tenure.
Stefanik also happily obliged when asked to describe how she would have handled the state budget if she was governor, telling reporters she would channel President Trump’s flurry of executive orders in order to take a hatchet to New York’s spending.
“We need to do that in Albany,” she said. “Albany has the most bloated budget of any state in the nation, we have to be able to find significant, significant savings,” she said.
In response, New York State Democratic Party Spokesperson Addison Dick laid into Stefanik.
“Elise Stefanik dodged question after question because there’s no good way to defend ripping away health care from two million New Yorkers,” he said. “While Stefanik lies to her constituents’ faces about her and Trump’s plan to gut Medicaid, New Yorkers see right through it – and they know Governor Hochul’s budget puts money back in their pockets, cuts taxes for the middle class, and makes our streets and subways safer.”
Democrats have taken heat for driving up the state’s budget to its highest level ever while in the same breath warning of impending federal cuts. Heastie Monday defended the decision.
“Passing a budget that would have opened the door for these cuts, I don’t know why people think we would do that. We said we would do a responsible budget, which is what we did,” he said.