State Legislature Republicans are calling for a summer-long holiday from gasoline taxes for all New Yorkers.
On Wednesday, the GOP conferences in both the Senate and the Assembly held press conferences in the state Capitol to push for a suspension of New York's three gasoline taxes — the 16-cent petroleum business tax, and the motor fuel and sales taxes, each of which is 8 cents. The suspension would run from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Two senators representing parts of the north country weighed in on the proposal.
"We've quickly reached a breaking point," said Sen. Joseph A. Griffo, R-Rome. "I've been talking to folks who are telling me that many of their future purchases and activities will be planned around when and how often they fill their gas tank. While we wait to see if the federal government can provide any relief, we need to move on this now."
"While there are limits on what can be done about high gas prices, cutting state taxes would mitigate the financial impact for families and businesses," said Sen. Elizabeth O'C. Little, R-Queensbury.
"And because our Senate district borders Canada and Vermont, this timely measure would entice more tourists to visit our region, helping local communities dependent on a strong tourist season as well as bringing outside revenue into the state," she said.
When asked for his take on the idea at a separate news conference, Democratic Gov. David A. Paterson called it a "meritorious proposal, if the savings are passed on to the consumer." The governor said that if retailers guaranteed not to further increase gas prices, which he acknowledged they likely cannot do, he would support the plan.
"We have to be scrupulously careful with our precious revenue," Gov. Paterson said. "Every penny is going to be important."
The governor said that new financial projections estimate that out-year budget deficits for the next three to four years will grow at an annual rate of 50 percent over the projected $5-billion deficit for the current fiscal year.
"We have to bring some fiscal reality to this state," the governor said.
Former Watertown Daily Times reporter Kenneth Lovett is set to become the Albany bureau chief for the New York Daily News. Mr. Lovett's last day at his former post in the Albany bureau of the New York Post was April 25.
During his tenure at Watertown Times in the late 1980s and early '90s, Mr. Lovett reported from Canton and Watertown.
Mr. Lovett, who joins Paul Browne as the second former Times reporter to head the Daily News Albany bureau, begins his new job on Monday.
The Defense Department spent $10.6 billion in New York in 2006, according to the Northeast-Midwest Institute's latest annual accounting of federal spending by state.
New York's total was 2.8 percent of the Pentagon's nationwide spending and worked out to $550 per person in the state. In the region covering the New England, the mid-Atlantic states and the Midwest, only Maryland had greater defense spending, totaling $14.6 billion.
New York ranked high on overall federal spending as well, totaling about $153 billion that year. Grants totaled $45 billion, retirement and disability totaled $45.3 billion, procurement totaled $11.8 billion and other direct spending totaled $40.6 billion. Salaries and wages were $9.8 billion. Per capita spending in New York was $7,931, trailing Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, who now heads the Motion Picture Association, was the featured speaker at a National Press Club luncheon recently. He took many questions about movies and the film industry, but there were the inevitable questions from agriculture reporters who refuse to leave him alone.
Among other things, Mr. Glickman said he highly doubted President Bush would veto the farm bill, given the broad support such bills usually gather in Congress. He said he continues to believe in free trade, despite the possibility that his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement cost him his congressional seat in the 1990s, before President Bill Clinton named him agriculture secretary.
As Mr. Glickman took farm-related question after farm-related question, entertainment reporters in the room groaned and rolled their eyes.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., is trying to open more of New York's maple trees to tapping for syrup.
Mr. Schumer announced that he is backing the Maple Tapping Access Program Act of 2008, which would give states grants to help private landowners open more land to tapping.
Northern New York has 100 million potential maple taps on privately owned land, Mr. Schumer's office reported. Less than one percent of the state's tappable trees are being used for that purpose, his office said.
The United States imports four times as much maple syrup as it produces, the senator's office reported. Quebec province is the top producer.
Compiled by Times Albany and Washington bureaus.
