Cuomo: New York has bailed out red states 'every year for decades'

From an April 27 press conference:

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): This is not the time to be talking about dollars and cents among members of a community that are trying to be mutually supportive and help each other, because helping each other is the way we actually all advance, right?

 

So this is not the time to be saying, ‘Well, you put in a dollar more than I did,’ or, ‘I put in five dollars more than you did,’ right?

 

It’s anachronistic to the concept of community and sharing and mutuality and sharing benefits and burdens, right?

 

I’m wearing a mask to protect you. You’re wearing a mask to protect me. That kind of sharing and mutuality is repugnant to this, ‘bailout, you got this much, I got this much.’

 

But if you want to go to who’s getting bailed out and who paid what, nobody would be bailing out New York state. New York state has been bailing them out every year for decades.

 

If you want to do an analysis of who is a giver and who is a taker, we are the number one giver, the number one giver. Nobody puts more money into the pot than the state of New York.

 

We’re the number one donor state.

 

And if you want to look at who happened to be the donor states — who are the giver states — they are the same states that they are talking about now.

 

Who are the taker states? Kentucky, southeast part of the country.

 

And by the way, I understand we’re one nation. You put into the pot what you need, I put in what I need, you take what you need, you take what you need. And that’s they way it’s always been.

 

But, if you actually want to call for an accounting — which I think is repugnant to this time, and I don’t think it’s constructive and I don’t think it’s healthy — but if you want to call for an accounting, you’re making a mistake. Because you lose if we do an accounting, you lose.

 

And you happen to be 180 degrees wrong in what you’re suggesting.

Cuomo was reacting to recent comments made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voiced his opposition to helping states that have been hit especially hard by the coronavirus crisis, like New York and New Jersey. Donald Trump has echoed those comments.

According to data from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, New York paid $35 billion more to the federal government that the state received in federal benefits in 2017.

Kentucky received $40 billion more from the federal government than the state paid in the same year.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.