NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday held a joint briefing in which they called for “fairness” in the distribution of $350 billion in local and state aid from the federal government after the coronavirus "ambushed" New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Cuomo said he was glad President Joe Biden proposed $350 billion in local and state aid as part of his $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill but that the funds distributed by Congress must reflect the heavy toll the pandemic took on the tri-state.
“New York, New Jersey and Connecticut paid a higher price for COVID than other states in other parts of this country,” Cuomo said. “That is just a fact. COVID came to the U.S. from Europe, not from China, and those flights landed in New York and New Jersey and they populated the tri-state region.”
“We were clobbered with you and Connecticut […] and the metro New York region, and that must be taken into account,” Murphy added during the briefing.
The governors also called on Congress to repeal the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, which they say was a political move by the Trump administration to hurt states like New York and New Jersey.
“They took tax money from New York, New Jersey, other Democratic states and they transferred it to Republican states, that’s what the SALT provision was all about,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo called the provision of the 2017 tax cut law an unconstitutional “attack” and said it costs New York state $12 billion per year and $34 million every day.
“Every day that SALT is not repealed is another $34 million that is taken from the taxpayers of this state,” the governor said.