MEET JOE DESTEFANO

I’m back in Albany for the start of the 2026 Legislative Session and am committed, as a member of the Republican Conference, to solving the long-standing problems of this state that get ignored year after year by the Progressive Democrats.

A key battle will be taxes and affordability. New York is one of the most expensive places to live in the country, and the policies of city-centric politicians that punish the suburbs and the working class are to blame. Long Island should not be a cash cow to fund a staggering $254.4 billion in state spending—$137 billion more than Florida, which has 3.5 million more people and no state income tax.

Next is the crime wave, which Albany Democrats set in motion by ushering in cashless bail and soft-on-crime, hard-on-police policies. Criminals get arrested time after time, and judges don’t have the power to hold them, allowing offenders to go right back out and commit more crimes. We will continue fighting to put an end to this.

The cost of energy in New York is going through the roof, and this can be directly blamed on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) passed by the Progressives in 2019. This law mandates the elimination of fossil fuels in favor of windmills, massive solar farms, and dangerous lithium battery storage facilities—all of which are proving to be costly failures. If you want to skyrocket energy prices and shackle an economy, the CLCPA is exactly how you do it.

This legislative session, we will fight for a rational state energy policy—one that doesn’t ban gas grills in our homes and doesn’t force schools to spend millions on electric buses or fire districts to go broke buying battery-operated fire trucks. New York sits atop a Saudi Arabia–sized supply of clean-burning, inexpensive natural gas. It’s long past time we are allowed to use it.

Assembly Republicans have a number of legislative proposals that we’re going to push for this year. Our Inflation Relief & Consumer Assistance Plan eliminates state sales tax on many everyday items, including gasoline and household supplies. We have also proposed the elimination of needless regulations that inhibit job creation.

We are pushing for a state tax cap—just like the caps imposed on local governments and school districts—and for rolling back rules and fees that make running a business here so expensive. The onerous state sales tax on mobile telecommunications services, including compensating use and excise taxes, should be eliminated. We are also targeting the 7.8 percent hike in medical care costs driven, once again, by policies coming out of Albany.

To further help families manage cost-of-living pressures, we are committed to making child care more affordable through tax incentives for families and providers—not through free universal pre-K offered only in New York City at the expense of the rest of the state, as proposed by Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani. Our Blueprint for Childcare Plan would save families an average of approximately $2,300 per year without saddling Long Island with New York City’s costs.

Transportation is another issue we are laser-focused on, including the amount of money the MTA siphons from Long Island every year to feed its bloated and mismanaged bureaucracy. If Long Islanders are going to keep funding the MTA, they deserve better service, safer roads and bridges, and the electrification of the antiquated diesel rail lines serving Suffolk County. And we will continue the fight to repeal the MTA payroll tax and congestion pricing, which unfairly punish Long Island drivers traveling into the city.

There is no shortage of important issues to tackle in 2026. With a steadfast commitment to protecting law-abiding New Yorkers and reducing costs across the board, members of the Assembly Republican Conference are hard at work advancing a common-sense agenda. The Empire State leads the nation in out-migration—people leaving because they simply can’t take it anymore—and that has to stop.