Full Transcript of the Episode
Note: This is a generated transcript. Please excuse any typos.
Joanna Pasceri 00:00
Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us from the lobby for our Monday morning minute, the podcast version of our popular weekly newsletter. It’s when we turn to Jack, managing partner at O’Donnell and Associates and author of our Monday morning memo, for more insight into the topics written this week. News out of Albany tops our memo on September 23 let’s bring in Jack Jeff. Welcome to the podcast.
Jack O’Donnell 00:25
Hi. Great to be here. I know our memo went out a little late this morning, but hopefully people got it and had a chance to read it, but excited to talk with you about it.
Joanna Pasceri 00:34
Great. I know it’s back out there now and everybody’s opening it up and seeing so let’s talk about what is in the memo this week, a state board that oversees how to spend billions of dollars in opioid settlement money will be handing out their recommendations soon. So what do we expect to hear? This is a big crisis here in New York.
Jack O’Donnell 00:55
It is absolutely and everything to do with this board has been a controversy. Originally, Governor Cuomo didn’t want to appoint the board. He wanted to have sort of unfettered discretion on how to spend the money. Governor Hochul came in, and in combination with the legislature, created the board. Since then, there’s been a lot of back and forth between the board on what to do on some of the state agencies that have oversight here, a lot of really infighting behind the scenes on this, on an issue that we know is important to so many New Yorkers who have lost friends family.
We have a number of clients in this space that are working hard to save lives. The big push here is to declare an Opioid Emergency,which will give the government more powers. But a lot of that is really controversial, includes things like safe injection sites, and some folks aren’t ready for that, and other folks have really legitimate concerns about what they do and how they do them, and where they do it. So, you know, this is something we expect to really hit, the legislature, hit the budget conversation, and just be a big topic over the next six months.
Joanna Pasceri 02:16
The recommendations aren’t binding, and I think a lot of people wonder, why have a board if you don’t take their recommendation?
Jack O’Donnell 02:24
Well, a lot of that comes back to this original fight. You know, there are also serious separation of powers questions, right? This is, this is government money that that’s come from some of these settlements, so having some unelected, appointed folks decide how to spend it, you know it’s complicated. And I think that’s also a reluctance on government, or folks in government, to move, perhaps as quickly as folks in the advocate community are, again, around things like these safe injection sites. So I think that’s the crux of of this controversy.
Joanna Pasceri 03:00
Now, speaking of money, the MTA released their budget last week with a major shortfall.
How is the state going to respond to this, especially since the governor has delayed that tolling program called congestion pricing to raise rent?
Jack O’Donnell 03:14
Well, this is going to be a big part of the governor’s budget. It’s going to be a big part of the legislative response to the governor’s budget. Look, even if the governor hadn’t paused congestion pricing, I mean, we saw, and we saw some of this earlier in the year, from a report from the State Comptroller that even with congestion pricing revenue, even with massive investment from the state, the MTA was still going to be short on all the money they need for this five-year plan. Is that new taxes? Is it a reinstatement of congestion pricing, which has some, you know, federal approvals that may need to go with it, depending on timing? There is a lot in this, and it’s not just about the people who pay for the MTA. It’s about how many, how many cars and trucks are on the roads in New York City, and what that means for clear air, but also what it means for people getting to hospitals.
We saw reports over the weekend that I think we linked to in the memo about ambulance time, response time, being slow, an op-ed from Senator Brad Hoylman signal about and folks getting to the hospital. And it’s also about upstate jobs. There are a lot of investments that the MTA makes that that has suppliers and sub suppliers here in upstate Buffalo, Rochester, Southern Tier, especially Hudson Valley. I mean, really, all across the state, these are a lot of jobs and a lot of investment, and we don’t know what the governor is going to propose. She has been very clear and very confident about her ability to provide the MTA with those funds. But I think a lot of folks are on the edge of their seats watching to see what she proposes.
Joanna Pasceri 05:04
Do you see a solution coming or not without a big fight?
Jack O’Donnell 05:08
I think there’ll be a big fight no matter what. I suspect there’ll be a couple different proposals. Again, Governor, just last week, spoke to the Business Council, said, again, I’m not raising personal income taxes next year. We’ve heard from members of the legislature, especially some of the more progressive members, saying that we should raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers to create money for this. You know, I suspect it’s going to be a mix of a number of different things. We’ve heard from other members of the legislature who say, if we speed up the approval of New York City casinos, that’ll help help pay for it, there is definitely going to be a fight, but I’m optimistic that there will be a solution.
Joanna Pasceri 05:52
Former President Trump held a rally in New York last week despite no real chance of winning this state.
What was behind that visit?
Jack O’Donnell 06:00
Well, on some level, that’s a good question. I think, you know, we’ve seen more and more reports from the Trump campaign that they’re less on this discipline plan and more on kind of letting Trump be Trump. Nominally, it was a commitment to help some of the Republican members of the House in New York, five to seven of them are in tough re election campaigns, right? We’ve certainly heard from we’ve written a lot about the governor Hochul and the state Democratic Party and their commitment to trying to win those congressional seats. So, you know, on one level, this was Trump pushing back on that.
Also that was originally a date scheduled for his sentencing that’s been put off. But I think originally it came out of something that he was going to be here in New York anyway, and wanted to make sure he was doing something while he was here, and then decided to stick with it. But a lot of folks have questioned him spending his time and resources in New York and when we’ve seen the battleground states becoming more and more competitiveand seeing Kamala Harris hanging out those places.
Joanna Pasceri 07:13
Prior to this visit, the salt issue came. Trump instituted the cap on federal production for state and local taxes. Now he says he wants to reverse it. Is this a campaign promise?
What’s behind that?
Jack O’Donnell 07:26
It seems like sort of empty rhetoric at this point, the salt cap and in the salt cap deduction was part of the Trump tax cuts a few years ago. Now, those do expire next year, so, and we’ve written about this in the memo, and you’ll hear, hear a lot more, probably after the election. You know, a lot of those cuts expire now. The the salt deduction is a huge number for the federal government to make up, and that’s why it was so politically palatable for especially red state Republicans, to support as a as a tax cut that only goes to folks who live in states where primarily democratic governments are over taxing and spending.
So it’s certainly an issue that is out there. I mean, we have heard from a lot of the New York Republicans on something needs to be done. There was a point where, six months ago, they were holding up some important legislation in in Washington to try to get that done. They couldn’t do it. We’ve heard from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that it’s something he wants to get done. It’s great to hear a lot of folks say they they want to get this done, but it’s going to be very expensive, but we’re going to hear a lot about it next year, and we’ll be watching.
Joanna Pasceri 08:44
Turning to Washington, there was a breakthrough over the weekend and talks over the federal budget. Were you surprised?
Jack O’Donnell 08:52
Well, I think there was generally a consensus in Washington that a sort of clean CR continuing resolution that didn’t include other policy riders would have to get done, and would get done to take us to a lame duck that that said Republicans had proposed some really significant policy issues, and especially around migrants or immigrants or other folks here, and how people vote, and verifying the vote, and then sort of what that looks like. When we saw President Trump tweeting about how House Republicans had to have that to get something done, it made me think we might have another week of sort of wrangling or virtue signaling from the parties, but I think everyone in Washington is happy to kind of get that done this week and then get back to their districts for the final sprint.
Joanna Pasceri 09:48
Well, let’slook ahead to next week’s memo. What are some political happenings that you are keeping an eye on?
Jack O’Donnell 09:54
You know, we’re following elections and what they mean. There’s little this week about. Super PACs we hit at the Senate race in Montana this week, which could determine the future of the Senate I guess we’ll probably be talking a little about a push from Democrats to try to support Senate challengers in places like Texas and Florida, Democrats have sort of live by this, protect their incumbents first, and not not chasing rainbows, you know, after some races where they spent a lot of money and didn’t come close. So that’s one of the things we’re going to be looking at, and sort of how that plays out in this last month of election season.
Joanna Pasceri 10:38
Getting down to the wire here, what was your favorite read this week in our news links?
Jack O’Donnell 10:42
Well, my favorite one this week really was from the Strong Museum of Play. They’ve got some voting there for the Toy Hall of Fame. You know, if our listeners haven’t been to the Strong Museum of Play, it is, like one of my favorite places in the world, and that’s primarily because I’m really still a 13-year-old boy at heart, but the fact that you can actually vote and help determine which of these toys is going to go into the Hall of Fame. You know, I hope everybody goes on and votes, and I will be up front as much as I really kind of want the transformers to be in there. I had to vote for the choose your own adventure stories, which you know, one of the things I hope I’m still trying to live today, but but a big part of my childhood.
Joanna Pasceri 11:28
Well, that voting goes on until Wednesday. So get on your Monday morning memo. Click on the article and have your say before the voting closes. Jack, thanks so much for that. Deeper dive into this week’s Monday morning memo. Are you getting our memo in your inbox each week? It is easy to subscribe. Just head to our website at odonnellsolutions.com that’s odonnellsolutions.com thanks for joining us for our Monday morning. Minute we’ll be back from the lobby with Jack O’Donnell.
