PUBLISHED 8:23 PM ET Apr. 05, 2021 PUBLISHED 8:23 PM EDT Apr. 05, 2021
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The end is in sight.
The New York state budget is now five days late, but lawmakers and the governor say they are “close” to finalizing a budget deal.
“We have a conceptual agreement on all issues, I think it s fair to say, the Senate, the Assembly, and myself,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said during a press conference on Monday. “They are working it through with their conferences. We’re dotting some i’s, we re crossing some t s. But that s where we are.”
In the meantime, lawmakers did introduce three more budget bills over the weekend.
Amtrak train rails extend down an underground transit tunnel that spans the Hudson River on Manhattan s west side, Saturday, March 20, 2021, in Weehawken, N.J. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
New Rail Routes? Tunnel Projects? What Amtrak Could Do If It Gets $80B in Biden s Infrastructure Plan. By Dan Rivoli New York City PUBLISHED 8:32 PM ET Apr. 05, 2021 PUBLISHED 8:32 PM EDT Apr. 05, 2021
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Amtrak has seen nothing like it in its 50-year history: President Biden s proposal to spend $80 billion to get the creaky railroad back on track.
If approved by Congress, the money would improve Amtrak service in New York and around the country, for example, funding a new line between Penn Station and the Poconos, part of a plan to bring passenger rail service to dozens of additional communities around the U.S.
Excluded Workers Fund Contains Echoes of Prior Debates PUBLISHED 5:28 AM ET Apr. 05, 2021 PUBLISHED 5:28 AM EDT Apr. 05, 2021
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An early test for the new Democratic majority in the state Senate in 2019 was a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for and receive driver s licenses. Long a third rail in New York politics, the measure squeaked through the chamber, but with Democrats from key swing districts voting against it.
Rather than punishing the party in power, voters handed Democrats a supermajority two years later.
But now a new test of the big tent is facing lawmakers in Albany: The proposed creation of a fund to aid workers who did not receive the strengthened pandemic unemployment benefits in the last year.
PUBLISHED 4:56 AM ET Apr. 05, 2021 PUBLISHED 4:56 AM EDT Apr. 05, 2021
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State lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are yet to reach a finalized agreement for a state budget, though smaller deals are in place to provide for property tax relief for middle-income homeowners as well as a tuition freeze at public colleges and universities in New York while increasing taxes largely on wealthier New Yorkers and corporations by more than $4 billion.
Snags remain over legalizing mobile sports gambling, a fund to aid people like undocumented immigrants who did receive boosted federal unemployment aid during the pandemic, and how to fund an expansion of universal pre-kindergarten statewide.