Elected officials, by and large, came out in support of the tax plan deal between Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb was not one of them. The upstate Republican blasted the measure as a tax hike, done behind closed doors and as a distraction from the issues New Yorkers needed real relief from:

From what has been reported in the media so far, the bottom line is that taxes are being raised in New York State and we are still not dealing with our state’s serious spending problem.  There is still no significant unfunded mandate relief for local governments.  We should be protecting taxpayers by capping local Medicaid costs, enacting a state spending cap and doing this through an open, public process where these issues are debated and discussed in the light of day, not through secret deals behind closed doors by three-men-in-a-room. Tax hikes have never been the answer for creating more private sector jobs and long-term prosperity for New Yorkers.  That still holds true today.