From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made just six days ago.

Primary election day, a day that seems to have shifted the trajectory of the Democratic Party in New York State.

The former governor, Andrew Cuomo, made a bid for New York City mayor.

And he got beat badly by a member of the New York State Assembly.

Zoran.

Mom.

Dummy.

Mom.

Danny.

I should say the new York State Democratic Party establishment such that there is one took a stinging defeat.

Now, that is not what we are here to talk about this hour.

Exactly.

But we will explore a little bit of the future of the Democratic Party with one of our guests, who always has a lot to say about that.

Assembly member Jen Lunsford is joining us as part of a series of conversations with state lawmakers about the New York state budget, a budget that includes, well, a lot of things.

We're going to talk about what's in it, what's not in it, why the priorities that the lawmakers have and what is still on the table to be done.

Jen Lunsford represents the 135th district of the New York State Assembly.

Welcome back to the program.

Nice to see you.

Always happy to be here.

And I'm you know, I'm just kind of curious right out of the gate here.

I mean, if how much you have worked with Zoran Mamdani.

Oh, he came in with me.

He was in my class, so we were, 2021, 2021.

Yes.

You're both elected in 2020.

So we work, together, insomuch as, you know, anyone does.

But we were, you know, socializing and, you know, very friendly during our first couple of years because as the Covid class, we really had to stick together because we were sort of all trying to figure this out remote at the same time.

And so we kind of trauma bonded as a class over how challenging it was when we came in.

I want to read a little bit of what the, what the Associated Press said about what's going on in New York City with this, with this race.

And here's what they write.

Quote.

Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly since 2021, would be the city's first Muslim and Indian-American mayor if elected.

Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams skipped the Democratic primary.

He's running as an independent now in the general election.

Andrew Cuomo also has the option of running in the general and is considering doing so.

Cuomo and Mamdani, or a study in political contrast, and could have played stand ins for the larger Democratic Party's ideological divide, with one candidate a fresh faced progressive and the other an older, moderate end quote.

Is that fair?

Do you view this as well?

The establishment just got their behind kicked, and it's the it's the young progressives who are on the rise now.

Is that is that oversimplifying?

I think it oversimplifies it a little bit in so much as Warren ran a race that could be studied, his comms were unbelievable.

He was very aggressive in his grassroots campaigning.

He knocked 1.5 million doors and frankly, Cuomo phoned it in and also was saddled with tremendous scandal while oddly unlikable, he was a person who he's not just like a moderate Democrat.

He's Andrew Cuomo, who was drummed out of office for being a creep.

I really don't know that this is a broader commentary on the party at whole.

Like, can you look at the New York City Democratic primary for mayor and say this is predictive of what can happen?

Progression congressionally in Dade County?

I don't know what you can, but, Zoran ran a incredible race and I think really touched on issues that matter to people.

An interesting analysis I saw recently was that the youth voter turnout was enormous.

The 18 to 24 cohort was the largest single voting demographic in that race.

And that is not something that we see.

And I say this to young people all the time.

If you guys voted, you tipped the scales.

And I think this is more illustrative of that fact than of anything from a broader messaging perspective.

And I think that's a really interesting analysis.

And you say that Cuomo was very unlikable.

I unlikable to you.

Oh, yes.

I think also unlikable.

I mean, I signed a letter asking him to resign.

I know, so you hadn't changed your mind on him?

I have not.

Did you have a rooting interest in the New York City mayors?

Right?

No, I mean, that was it was a very broad field.

I kind of let New York City do what New York City wants to do.

I was not a fan of Cuomo.

I don't think he should have run again.

I think he's saddled with, tremendous baggage as a candidate.

But also, he's a bully, and I don't want to have to deal with him as mayor.

I think that he would be, challenging to work with.

Yeah.

So one other point in this for we shifted the state budget.

And the reason it matters is, I mean, the mayor of New York City, I mean, you're the leader of how many people are in New York City.

8.8, I think, you know, 8 or 9 million people.

I mean, it's a lot.

And, so there's also been a lot of talk.

And, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, recently clarified some remarks.

During a radio interview last Thursday, Senator Gillibrand, appeared to suggest that Zoran Mamdani had condoned global jihad.

And her office now tells rolling Stone that she misspoke.

But the senator is concerned about comments Mamdani has made about Israel and Palestine and their concerns.

The Senator Gillibrand basically said a lot of her Jewish constituents are worried about this.

Are you worried?

Zoran certainly was very, vocal about his feelings about Israel.

He hosted the, not on our dime act, which would disinvest from not for profits that do work in Israel.

I think that people for whom that is a major issue absolutely have a right to ask for answers from him, because he used some very, very strong language.

Now, while New York City is the second largest Jewish population in the world, I don't know how much influence they actually have over Israel in Gaza.

So does it really matter all that much?

I that's a question for New Yorkers.

This is the New York City mayor.

But, certainly, you know, Zoran, I've watched him over the last year, trying to put some words back in his mouth that he said.

And the bill, Disinvest where were you on that bill.

Oh, I oppose that bill.

I don't think we should be disinvest from not for profits in general.

But also my issue with that particular bill was the not for profits that would have been, denied resources also do humanitarian work in Gaza.

They also help Palestinians.

And I have some issues with bills that single out Israel, because there's lots of countries that commit humanitarian, crimes and who are, hurtful towards groups of people.

And unless you're going to include all of those countries, I have some questions about why you singled out Israel.

All right.

We're talking to Jen Lenz for the New York State Assembly member from district number 135.

Typically when we sit down Post-Budget, I'm curious to know if lawmakers have a one big thing from this budget.

Was there a one big thing for you from this?

So there certainly was one big thing.

And I would say that that was finally paying down the unemployment insurance loan.

This is a little wonky.

So people will bear with me for a second.

During Covid, we used 30 years of unemployment benefits in a year.

And in doing so, we had to take out a loan from the federal government to cover our, costs on that, we had a $10 billion loan and many other states which had much smaller loans.

They weren't hit as bad as New York was.

They used a lot of their Arpa funds to pay that loan down.

We didn't.

We invested in communities and programs that are Arpa funds.

So we had this loan hanging over our head.

And while we were chipping away at it, and while we tried to insulate businesses as much as possible, the parameters of that loan require that they be paid back by a surcharge on unemployment.

So all of our businesses, particularly our small businesses, saw their unemployment insurance rates skyrocket.

Over the last few years, we have been paying off the interest to try to keep that control.

But this year, we finally paid off that entire loan.

We decided to make an $8 billion, one shot payment, and the reason we did that was not just to get that monkey off our back and, you know, reduce some leverage that this federal government has over us and to alleviate the burden on our small businesses.

But it looks like we may be heading towards, the economic R-word that I try not to say.

And if we end up with more unemployment and need to take out another loan, if we have an existing loan, we do not benefit from a two year interest free grace period.

So economically, it just made sense to pay this loan off so that if we do have to take out another loan, we can benefit from that interest free period.

So this is just doing state business well even when it's hard.

Is that kind of correct?

This was taking money from our reserves, which I know the governor is very, precious about our reserves.

We have enormous reserves in New York.

I think from having seen some bad things happen.

But we had reserves over $20 billion.

I think this was a good use of our reserve funding.

It's like having money in your savings account while you have, high interest loans.

It doesn't make sense to keep saving that money when you can pay down the loan.

Okay, so.

So that is one of the headlines for you.

Now, I'm going to ask you about a bunch of things that have been reported on.

But listeners, if there's things that you want to talk about with Assembly Member Jen Lunsford, you can do that as well.

And there's different ways you can do that.

You can call the program toll free.

844295 talk.

It's 84429582552636.

And if you call from Rochester 2639994, you can email the program connections at Zorg.

And I got an email before the program began.

And here you go.

Charles, has heard you on this program, especially in the last year.

Surely in the last six months since the new administration came in talking about guarding against some of what you perceive as their overreaches or problems.

And this is what Charles, he says, New York is consistently ranked the least free state in the nation.

Both the current and former governor have openly stated that they don't believe their political opponents should be allowed to live here.

Maybe instead of guarding against the Trump administration, Lunsford and the rest of the state government ought to get their house in order.

That's true.

Charles, I have never heard of this list of freedoms.

I have not found myself to be on a list of the least free states.

I don't know what he's referring to.

I honestly, I don't either.

I mean, like, I maybe that there are different metrics out there and I'm open to seeing what that is.

And I, I also have never heard the governor saying that her political opponents can't live here.

I guess I have a question.

I think when Cuomo was governor, he made some flippant remarks about political opponents like, you know, if they don't like it, they should leave or they shouldn't be here.

I mean, I think I'm paraphrasing correctly, I will correct it as fast as I can if, if I'm if I'm not remembering correctly.

But Charles is basically saying as a conservative, he doesn't feel all that welcome, and he thinks that we're not a very free state and we should be focusing on those things.

Do you think we're a pretty free state?

I think we're an extremely free state.

I think sometimes people view inclusivity as oppression because they are feeling their time as the top of the food chain.

Pushed against.

And when we include other people, it doesn't take power away from anyone else.

Power is not a pie.

If I give people recognition that doesn't take away recognition from other people, and I think that there is this sort of conservative mindset sometimes that, oh, I didn't have to think about racism.

I didn't have to think about sexism.

I didn't have to think about rights for gay people.

And you're making me think about those things.

And somehow that's interpreted as oppression.

It's not.

These other people have always lived here, and they have always deserved a place in our society.

And I think the fact that we are finding ways to make sure people aren't, discriminated against or that they feel safe in public spaces is a form of freedom, even if some people don't like that.

I can't speak for all progressives, all conservatives, all anything.

But I think some conservatives would say no, you're misrepresenting this has gone too far in different ways.

It's not not wanting to recognize existence.

It's certain things have gone too far in their view.

What do you think?

Well, considering the Supreme Court just came down and said that parents can opt out of their kids reading books that feature LGBTQ characters, not sex ed, not books about, mechanics of, sexual relations.

Just that, like in, let's say, there's a book called Harry Gets Carried Away where there's two dads.

They're a very small part of the story.

Harriet is the main character.

She just happens to have two dads there at a party store that someone could opt out of their kid reading that book because it features two dads.

That is about existence.

And this actually, this was a case in the Massachusetts Supreme Court in the early 2000, where, Massachusetts said, you are not allowed to deny your child access to the knowledge that people exist.

And the Supreme Court has just said that that's what people can do.

So I think we are talking about whether people can exist in society and be free to love who they love and marry who they want and live their lives as any other citizen.

So until this federal government stops trying to roll back the clock on people's rights, I'm going to have to stand strong and say that I will always protect people's rights to be free in our state.

When the Ro overturning happened, if you read some of the justices language there, they're signaling pretty hard at Obergefell.

And and those kinds of decisions don't equal marriage and other things.

Is it your expectation that state government will continue to have to play an important role in.

I don't have the term regarding against is the how do you see that?

And do you expect more coming from the federal government, from the Supreme Court, etc.?

So the argument has been that they're going to return these rights to the states that states are going to be able to make these individual decisions.

However, we know that there are justices that have personal beliefs and that there are members of Congress that have personal beliefs where they think the federal government should outlaw abortion.

They think the federal government should outlaw gay marriage.

So I'm not even confident that given certain decisions, the states will be able to stand against it.

We have done everything we can in New York to protect these rights between prop one, the Reproductive Health Act, gender, all sorts of laws we passed years and years ago, to try to make sure that no matter what happens at the federal government, we have done everything we can to ensure that New Yorkers have their rights protected.

And we're not rolling back the clock.

But I am not confident, especially after this most recent, docket that came down, last week out of the Supreme Court.

What we're going to see talking to Jen Lunsford, a member of the New York State Assembly.

And hold on a second here.

Sorry about this.

I'm, you know, I've been off for a week, and I don't even know how to operate anything here.

Mike just wants to know why is there some Assembly member able to be more blunt than many of your colleagues?

That's an interesting question.

That's probably a mental illness.

But I think it is a function of, my sort of overall governing philosophy, which is one of radical honesty.

I am very blunt and very forthcoming with the way things work internally.

And I hope that when people come into my office and I work with advocates that they trust that I'm telling them the truth, and that when I say I can stand for something, I can, and that when I have issues, they're going to know I have issues, and that I think government works better when everyone knows the rules and everyone understands the context.

So does that make my job a little more annoying?

Yeah, I've taught plenty of people that advocate better to me and been hoisted on my own petard, but I think a lot of other people choose sort of the path of least resistance, which is placating people.

I choose to educate, and it's really just a difference in philosophy.

There's this idea, though, that it's better just to be safer and to do things the old way.

I mean, you talked about like the the I think you said like Cuomo like phoned it in in this primary.

His ads were like, look like they're from like the 90s.

It was like because he's from the 90s.

Like you do you know who's are on Mamdani is like, be very careful.

Like he is very bad.

And and it was like, you know, like everything was very gray and dark in these ads.

Like, Mamdani is out there just like on TikTok, like talking to people on the street, like, like, what do you need out of your state government?

I mean, it was like, totally different.

I really think there's something to be said of, younger politicians as well.

You know, a lot of people in my class using building language as opposed to destruction language.

Tell me more about that.

So I always try to talk about what I bring, what we need.

I love my state and I love my community.

I wouldn't do this job if I didn't come from a place of love and wanting it to be better.

So the idea that I would tell everyone how terrible my state is and how terrible my community is, doesn't make any sense.

Like when you even like when you get these fundraising emails that are like, we're doomed, why would I give you money if you're doomed?

That doesn't make any sense to me, because you're going to undo us.

So I feel like I talk, and I think Zoran does this.

A number of my colleagues do this.

We talk about government being better and our services being better instead of the danger we're protecting you against.

And I think this is something we can talk about federally.

A lot of people are running for Senate and Congress on the Trump is so dangerous, we have to stop him.

And that's important.

But that's not enough.

People elected Donald Trump.

You have to tell the people who voted one way why they need to vote another way and look at a budget is not a sufficient argument.

You need to say, here is what I will affirmatively do to make things more affordable to you, to make your kids education better, to help you better access health care.

People need things to be easier than they are now, and you can choose to speak about that in positive terms or negative terms.

And I think people respond better to positive terms.

And so what is an example when you look at this new presidential administration and you have constituents who have been concerned about Medicaid, you have constituents who are concerned about health care costs, whether they are going to have insurance, whether they're going to have a job.

What are things that you can constructively say that go beyond the Trump administration, in your view, is doing bad things, and we should guard against it?

What's what's the constructive version of that?

So we can talk about how here in New York State, we've done a lot of things around access to health care in the last year, we have removed copays for insulin.

We passed a bill about removing co-pays for EpiPens.

We are we have a very robust, essential plan here.

And one of the reasons that this, so-called big, beautiful bill will be so harmful to New York, stripping what looks like $13 billion out of it, it's because we have such a robust, essential plan that provides health care to people who otherwise wouldn't access that, and that creates healthier New Yorkers.

The ecosystem of health care is very, very fragile.

And what the federal government is doing is taking the foundation out of our hospitals system to give tax cuts to billionaires.

And I try to talk to you all about impact.

Sometimes we talk about Medicaid like, oh, don't you care about our most vulnerable?

Don't you care about the seniors?

Don't you care about the children?

But I'm going to tell you, your private health insurance and your elective shoulder replacement are going to take longer.

If Medicaid is cut, because our hospitals will become overburdened, ours will close.

Elective surgeries will not be available.

Rural hospitals will shut down their Eds.

You will have a lot of pressure at RH and strong.

You go to the emergency room without a heart attack because you say, you know you have a cut or you think you broke a bone.

Expect to sit there for three times as long.

This is going to affect you.

So let's talk about what we can do to better address that and how this is going to hurt you as a person, not just about generally how we should try to protect all people, which is important.

So when your political opponents talk about insulin or wiping out copays for EpiPens or other kinds of support for health care services as being too expensive, you seem to be pointing downstream saying, look at the results.

I mean, is that the kind of argument that absolutely that your way is actually can be cost saving in the future?

It is very challenging for government in general to understand that spending money today costs less tomorrow.

And if we invest in healthier New Yorkers, the entire system saves money.

Early intervention is a great example of this.

I talked about early intervention on the show.

I think every single time I'm here that services for children 0 to 3 who aren't meeting their milestones, it's mandated to be paid by the counties through Medicaid dollars.

We don't have a system that can support the need because we have a lack of providers.

We do a lot of work around trying to raise rates.

I've done a lot of work personally.

That's a separate conversation.

But children who receive early intervention services for things like speech or physical therapy or occupational therapy end up not needing as many services later, two out of five kids who get early intervention never need special education services.

That is a net savings to our school districts, to our taxpayers who pay school taxes.

If we spend the money upfront, not only do we like create healthier children, which should be enough of a goal, and ensure that children are meeting their milestones and going to become thriving, contributing members of society.

But we save money.

And when you do things like say, you know, our Medicaid rolls are bloated.

All right.

So when you take those people off Medicaid, they're not going to go get private insurance.

They're just going to be uninsured, which means that their tooth abscess is going to end up in the emergency room where they have an infection.

They end up costing the system more.

They lose their job.

It just doesn't make economic sense.

Now, on the subject of early intervention, because you brought it up and we have to talk about it every time.

You every time.

Well, I mean, and rightly so.

You and you have plenty of colleagues who care deeply about it, too.

And in fact, I consistently feel like there's a lot of agreement, across party lines on this.

This is a very bipartisan issue.

Okay.

So what's happening now with early intervention raising rates?

Nothing.

You got nothing.

It's a bipartisan.

Everybody agrees.

It's actually really frustrating you guys.

Nothing.

Everybody agrees except for OBM.

I guess, but which is the the Office of Budget.

So they think it's too expensive.

But the reality is, is that we didn't have the push this year around a rate increase because we passed a study bill last year and we're kind of waiting for that study to roll out to tell us how much we really need.

We sort of been asking for 11% for a few years now, to the point where I'm like, it can't still be 11% now.

We've been asking for 11% for too long.

But doing things around, local initiatives to try to offset some of the costs Medicaid can't pay for.

Like, for example, I've been in talks with the county about trying to create a pilot of some sort to pay for things like documentation time and travel time, because Medicaid can't cover that, and because it's fee for service.

Let's say you are a provider and you live in Fairport and you have a client and they live in Greece.

You drive from Fairport to Greece.

You can't tell the time in the car you get there, you knock on the door and they're not there.

Now you get paid nothing or you perform the service and then you spend 20 minutes writing up your, you know, mandated documentation of that visit.

That documentation in time isn't covered.

That same person can go work for a school district and make more money.

So we need to fix that system.

Some of it is, you know, limitations on federal Medicaid, but we really need to invest in the system.

When you talk about OBM, like it's like this murky thing staffed by like AI or something, and that's just people running numbers.

Right?

And it's true.

I mean, they are the eye of people.

I love Blake.

Washington is a great guy.

I know him really well.

He was our, Ways and Means, council.

I could call him up right now and be like, how much did we spend on library funding in 2017?

And he would just generate it.

So the eye of people is a compliment, I guess.

I mean, he is he knows a lot of stuff.

But yeah, it's, they they have a job and that is to keep our coffers full and ensure that we can meet our, our debts and pay our bills.

And I recognize that anything around Medicaid, especially this year, was very challenging to pass because we were expecting some cuts.

Yeah, these cuts are far deeper than we were expecting.

That's not what Republicans in Washington say.

Well, they, haven't been listening to any of their locals either, because the red states are getting it even worse than we are per capita.

The red states, all rely on Medicaid more so than we do.

We're a donor state.

You know, we ultimately pay more into the federal system than we get.

But this is going to literally kill people and not just people on Medicaid.

Okay?

Now, just as a brief aside, because of the many things we talk about often on this program, I don't know if I've talked too much, too much about I with you.

And this is like a weird thing.

Like in my head, I could do a whole hour because when you when you talk about something like this, the eye of people like that has to be a pejorative, because I think of it as, like, very dark.

And I'm not typically a fan.

And this, the the federal bill seeks to stop states from being able to regulate AI in any meaningful way for the next decade.

As far as I understand it.

I mean, I it's true.

Okay.

So functionally, what does that mean?

Well, let me step aside.

We're gonna get there in a second.

You big fan of AI.

It's really good for the future.

You're really glad we're doing this.

So I'm not a big fan of A.I.

however, I think there's a way to do A.I.

in certain sectors that can provide a lot of benefit.

I also think it's going to do to white collar, entry level jobs with globalization and manufacturing, and that we are not writing.

It's moving too fast.

But I today is still not what people think it is.

It is very sophisticated in that, like, you can talk to it and it feels like a person, but it is still not a person.

Could it get there?

Oh yeah, it could.

I was a philosophy major and I'll talk to you about this all day.

But we're not there yet.

It's a very sophisticated Boolean search.

It's a natural language, interface that is, replicating the field of talking to a person.

But, yeah, for example, like, I went into ChatGPT just for fun.

Let's see who's Jen Lunsford.

And it was way wrong.

It says wrong, way wrong.

It said that I took over Harry's job when Harry took over Joe Morelli, which is like, actually, like, impossible from a distracting perspective.

And I was like, where did that even come from?

So a pretty basic thing.

And there's a lot of information about me on the internet for it to have been that wrong that fast.

I don't have a lot of concerns, but I think a lot of people are using AI wrong right now.

And it's going to create there's going to be a time where we look back on this, like the early internet days where everything was E, everything is AI.

But, you know, someday radiologists are going to be better at their jobs for sure.

We're going to be better at predicting traffic patterns.

There's going to be things AI does from medical, right, like medical spending.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so much good that's going to come in health care.

I think, as a very lay person, like that's what we're I'm very optimistic.

I'm worried about the future of jobs for my kids.

I'm worried about how we value workers and what we incentivize companies to do with AI.

Elon Musk said that AI is going to solve $1 trillion problem, and he never said what the problem is, the problems humans.

The problem is wages are the trillion dollar problem that AI is going to solve.

And Elon Musk said his wages, but I mean, this is going to put us in a position where maybe UBI is a thing we really need to talk about.

And, you know, the future that I was promised was that I was going to get to, you know, make art and write poetry while I did my laundry.

And it seems to be the opposite.

Exactly how do we flip this?

I don't need AI to write my poetry.

I need not I don't need another AI song.

Like, I like songs by people.

The energy consumption of AI is actually the thing I'm most concerned about.

I saw a meme about this the other day, but like, I'm getting, you know, text from our genie being like, oh, you're, you know, electricity consumption is higher.

And I'm like, well, yeah, it's 90 degrees out, you know, turn down your, air conditioning.

And I was like, well, AI is generating the pictures of, you know, Allen Iverson reading the Bible for some reason.

So maybe it doesn't do that.

And I don't have to turn down my air conditioning.

Crypto and I are oh my God, it's so we actually legitimately need to force them to co-locate renewables next to their, facilities because they suck up so much of the grid.

Okay, so I'm so far off course I could do this all day, but so the two other quick things, I promise we'll get to some phone calls and emails.

We've got them.

Let me just type a couple of points here.

If you're watching on the YouTube feed and we're on YouTube every day on Sky news.

Hello.

And you, if you saw I saw Member Lunsford face when she was talking about Elon Musk and him describing $1 trillion problem.

Here's how I interpreted your face.

Like he gave away the game.

He views work as a problem to be solved like human wages.

He and you kind of looked at my interpretation of what you were communicating.

There was like, is everybody hearing how they are defining a problem?

Yeah.

Is that correct?

1,000%.

This is a man who is like, here's what we do.

We send people to Mars and in exchange for the ride, they work for us.

I'm like, that's indentured servitude.

You just invented indentured servitude and put it on Mars.

He's like, it truly views people as fungible robots that can produce labor for him.

And so the Elon Musk is just the one we know the name of.

There is a lot of these guys and they're in positions of power, and they are trading humanity for dollars every single day.

So what what does this bill mean, that are you unable, as a state lawmaker, to draft legislation that that seeks to impose any kind of limitations on what AI is doing?

I would need to see what the final language looked like.

And I guarantee you there will be lawsuits.

But, I mean, the federal government does put a floor on things.

We can and cannot do.

Sure.

However, there's also police powers, constitutional police powers that are limited to the states.

And I don't know without seeing the language is really doing an analysis of like where it sits in what chapters, whether this is something they could do.

But we've already taken steps in New York State to regulate AI.

Like we have some campaign, stuff that says, like, you're using AI imagery.

You have to tell people about it.

We, have there was just a bill right at the end of last year that Alex Boris did around AI.

We recognize that not only is it something we have to do, but we're behind the ball and we will always be behind the ball.

Technology moves very, very fast and lobbies very, very slow.

So even trying to be as aggressive as we can, we will always be 3 to 5 years behind where we need to be, if not more.

And so we still have to see the details of this.

But it is possible that what the feds are doing is trying to, prevent any kind of a throttle on AI, and I think that.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

Let's take this in the light.

Most positive, which I'm very rarely going to do in this scenario.

Let's say that they're like, look, the internet is not limited by borders.

It is very challenging for internet based companies to flourish and grow in environments where there are state by state regulations.

And this is a burgeoning industry that is valuable to our country.

From an economic perspective.

We want to ensure that any regulations that are done are done federally so that we don't create unnecessary barriers, state by state, that cause issues.

Like, I can understand that argument in a universe where I thought they were going to create a new regulations, I'd be like, all right, there's some merit to that.

There are there's merit to a lot of, arguments around doing things federally versus state by state.

But like, we took action on social media because the federal government was not.

Yeah.

So in your view, is like, if you're going to make it the Wild West, then we will step in and regulate.

Correct.

But they're claiming, no, we just want uniform standards, which would be like maybe no standard.

Yes.

That's correct.

Okay.

Lastly on this, because you said the philosophy thing, what percentage chance do you think it is that we're living in a simulation?

So I heard a great argument once.

I'll recommend a book to you later.

That if we were living in a simulation, everything would work better.

And I was like, yeah, that's valid.

So?

So not a very good chance.

No, no, you're not.

You're not buying it.

I would be a really mean simulation if it was.

Oh yeah.

But there's a lot of things that are really mean.

Yeah.

I mean like we can get into the spiritualism of, like, or just the how people who are deeply religious feel about childhood cancer.

I mean, like, it's tough, but like, if it was a simulation, street lights wouldn't go out.

Why would there just be one street light at night?

Everything works perfectly.

Just because they figured out how to create like a complicated simulation doesn't mean the lights all work.

Why are my feet hurt all the time that I cannot help you with?

We are.

We're going to take a break.

We're going to come back.

We've got phone calls.

Roberta in Rochester.

We'll take your call.

We've got some emails to share.

Rick, I'll take your email.

On the freedom thing.

We'll come back to that and we're going to talk more with Assembly Member Jen Lunsford from district number 135 about the recently passed state budget.

What's in it, what's not, and more that's coming up next.

Coming up in our second hour, the Rochester tiki scene is expanding in pretty significant ways.

The Rochester Tiki Festival is coming later this summer, and the newest bar in Rochester, it's on Park Ave.

It's tiki themed.

What is tiki?

Where does it come from?

What about some of these kind of thorny issues that people bring up about some of the roots of that culture?

We're going to talk to a food historian.

We're going to talk to the people behind the newest bar.

We're going to talk about the festival.

It's all next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Carolla Center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Carrie ola.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and this is Roberta in Rochester on the line with Assembly member Jen Lunsford.

Go ahead Roberta.

Hi there.

Thanks so much for taking my call.

I'd like to have a little bit more clarification on, the bill.

Not on our dime.

Just to to make it clear who I am.

And my concerns.

I am, an older Jewish woman.

I'm really, really appalled by what is currently going on.

With the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, spurred a proliferation of US based charitable organizations fundraising to support the Israeli military and violent settlers.

I feel like as a as a, as a Jew, I should be able to speak out freely.

I feel as a Jew when I've been taught to raise, tikkun olam, the idea of trying to heal the world, that it isn't our place in this country to be sending billions of dollars to Israel so that they can go and blast away at their neighbors.

Now they're blasting.

They've been blasting away at Syria over 60,000 Gazans have been either killed or children are starving.

I don't want that money being spent to kill my neighbors.

My global neighbors.

All right, so, Roberta, let me just jump in here and give the assembly member some time to respond.

If you want to do that, go ahead.

Sure.

So I am also a Jewish woman.

I have family in Israel.

I, basically agree with you, though.

The not on our dime act, which I'll tell you, has no legs.

It is unpassable.

In New York State, it specifically relates not to giving money to the Israeli government, but to giving money to NGOs, and not for profits that do work in Israel.

And it is so broad that it includes things like people who give food to Palestinians, people who give medical care in the West Bank.

Like it is very, very, very broad to the point that I think it is over inclusive and would limit the ability for organizations that are doing good humanitarian work to continue to do that work.

There's also some other legal issues around it about, you know, dealing with, telling not for profits what they can spend money on in other countries.

I don't know that as a state, we we actually have the ability to do that.

But all right, Roberta, thank you for the phone call.

David in California listening.

Hello, David.

Go ahead.

Oh.

Thank you.

And, you know, this is a great answer.

I, in San Francisco in, Chevron used to be, one of our corporate headquarters here.

And the fact that, there's oil underneath Gaza and Chevron has the rights to it, seems to be this is just another oil war, and it's not a, it's not a religious war.

It's just another oil war.

But, I wanted to ask how the DOJ's cuts, specifically, were affecting, new York.

Are there ways that, you can use multiplier effects to create local economies so that the DOJ's cuts won't, tear the state apart?

So that's a really good question.

The DOJ's cut specifically around, federal employees, you know, that we have a lot of federal employees in New York.

I happen to I always say I'm from Patchogue, but I actually am from Holtville.

And that's where the IRS is located on Long Island.

I have a lot of friends who received, those scary emails, some of them who've lost their jobs, Kathy Hochul, extended opportunities.

There's actually a whole website, a whole New york.gov website for displaced federal employees because we have a lot of vacancies in the state government.

I actually carry a bill to find out how many vacancies, because no one will tell me.

But we have a lot of vacancies.

So if you are a displaced federal employee, New York wants you.

We want to figure out ways to to give you jobs here.

We are trying to leverage this into, opportunities for people to, maybe even change careers.

I've been seeing a lot of, TV commercials around direct service professional jobs, which I think are, a great opportunity for people.

We need more of them.

So we're doing what we can to try to smooth out that transition.

In terms of dollars, though, this gets far more complicated.

There's a lot of lawsuits.

And, you know, when people ask what Democrats are doing, I point every time to our attorney general, Tish James, because she has been leading the fight.

She is the tip of the spear as it comes to, lawsuits that are protecting against some of these, unlawful cuts.

But we can only backfill so much.

We can only buttress so much.

And knowing that we've got this huge Medicaid cut, which is the largest portion of our budget, we are unable to grant our way out of this.

But as organizations have been, suddenly cut as individual assembly people, we've been trying to facilitate, private dollars for them, trying to match them with grant opportunities, supporting them where we can.

It's really an all hands on deck situation because it is such a disparate and, diverse issue across many different industries.

And this is a very good question.

And, David, thank you for listening.

Thanks for making that phone call.

It's 844295 talk.

If you want to call the program toll free.

844295825526368.

Call from Rochester.

2639994.

Email the program connections at 60 talk.

Rick emailed.

Following up from Charles.

Charles talked about freedoms and the Assembly member talked a lot about inclusivity and things, but we're probably more related to the culture war.

Rick is saying he thinks the reason that New York is not as free as you say, Assembly Member Lunsford, is because of taxes that were too taxed, and that takes freedom away.

What do you say to that?

So I think taxes facilitate freedom.

I think taxes are, at some point there's going to be diminishing returns.

Yeah.

Right.

So people complain about New York taxes, but if you go to a place like Florida that has, you know, they don't have property tax like we do, they nickel and dime you in user fees.

There.

You know, registrations are higher.

There are people who tell me who have moved from New York and move back, that it cost them more to live in Florida.

It's just a different way of sucking money out of your pocket.

So anyone who fundamentally thinks taxes are oppression is going to have that perspective.

But from my perspective, I would rather pay taxes so I don't have to pave my road so that I don't have to pay the fire department to put out a fire at my house so that my kid gets an education.

But so does everyone else's kids.

So that when we need to hire cashiers is everyone can do math.

I actually think it's the cheapest way to do business is through taxes.

And I know that that is not, a wildly popular opinion, but in New York State, the taxes people complain about are property and school taxes.

Not so much state taxes.

We actually have among the lower corporate tax rates than other states.

We have, in, Monroe County, we have a sharing agreement between our county and our city on sales tax.

Property and school taxes are levied by your local government.

So I actually have a lot less power over that.

But what we do at the state level is find other ways to put money back in your pocket, like we, because of inflation, had an unexpectedly large sales tax because things were costing more and we ended up with a bit of a windfall.

We had a $3.1 billion excess above what we expected because sales tax is so high.

So we're returning that money to the taxpayers.

We're cutting checks.

You should receive them in the fall.

And that's a way that we are figuring out how to get money back to New Yorkers.

Right.

Let me get as much as I possibly can here.

By the way, on the subject of taxes.

How about on the highest earners?

That seems like an annual debate within the Democratic Party.

Where are you on taxing the rich and the super rich?

I'm always pro taxing the rich in the super rich.

I, we've done that in the past.

In New York, we do have, among the higher tax rates for the, super wealthy 5 million above, I support a million and above.

And that and we're talking about annual income, too.

These are people who earn $1 million a year.

There are some progressive tax bills that start to increase our tax brackets at $323,000 a year.

I think that's a little low.

$323,000 a year is, you know, middle class people in New York City as much as that, like, doesn't feel that way.

So I need to see that a little bit higher.

But a million and above.

Absolutely.

That is, also wildly popular in all of the constituent surveys that we've run a lot to get to here.

Our colleague, Noelle Evans, has reported on the fact that you were a co-sponsor on a recently passed bill that adds warning labels to social media platforms.

If signed into law, social media companies would be required to include a label highlighting the negative mental health effects of excessive use of apps that use features designed to keep people engaged.

So, I guess the warning label would be designed by the state mental health commissioner.

Tell me a little bit more about that.

Where you are on that, why you think it matters?

So this is another attempt to try to just educate youth, in particular around the dangers of social media.

I'm sure everyone, with children who's tried to explain to them why social media is detrimental or who have said, you, you know, you're in sixth grade, you can't have a phone.

Yeah.

All know my friends have phones.

Well, you can't have a phone.

A lot of those arguments center around.

Well why why why why why.

And we're just trying to create more opportunities to facilitate those conversations.

And to have people think about the fact that what you're doing is addictive.

What you're doing is, detrimental in kids to sleep, detrimental to, efficient time use.

I've recently read The Anxious Generation.

I'm sure a lot of you let your listeners have as well.

Jonathan.

Hi, John.

Yeah.

And while I'm not anti screen time, I was raised by a television.

You one an 80s theme song.

You tell me.

I will sing it right now.

I was a latchkey kid in the 80s.

I can do them all.

But, it's when those screens replace physical activity or replace social interaction that we really start to see these detriments.

And especially in teens, the addictive feeder, the dopamine release of the next thing, the next thing, the next thing.

I myself am guilty of being up too late.

Just continuing to watch people make art on Instagram.

I love watching someone make art.

It's very soothing.

So I'm.

I should have been asleep an hour ago instead of doing this.

Okay, so, is this going to pass?

Where is this?

Oh, it was, I believe it passed both houses, and I have no idea where the governor is on it, but I have every expectation will pass.

She's been pretty aggressive on these issues.

So how quickly will we see a rollout of actual, warning labels?

So it's hard to say when we, deliver bills to the governor, we tend to deliver them in batches.

And sometimes there's a delay because we're having conversations.

But also as a legislature, we pass the majority of our bills.

In the last month, the governor only has ten days from the day they're delivered to sign them.

If we delivered them as we did them, she would be literally buried in bills for the month of June.

But even if she signed this today, how quickly could you?

Could you see actual social media warning label?

I was pretty complicated.

I do not know what the effective date on this is or how long the rollout is, but I imagine it's probably a pretty lengthy amount of time because they'd have to develop it and then, instigate it.

If there was a chapter amendment on this, which is what happens when the governor negotiates a change.

Yeah.

I think that it would probably be on the effective date, if anything, I'm not supposed to talk about my opinions, but I just want to say, like, even just watching kids play Pokemon Go, there's you get points for streaks, daily streaks.

You have to do something every day.

They know how to incentivize you to be on every day.

Yep.

And they know how to get in your brain and make that dopamine hit get, says my eight year old ADHD son.

I just have to do my my daily task.

I just got to do my one daily.

Yes.

And it's really tough when you're an adult.

Now imagine when you're a kid.

So I had I got on my Duolingo though, so that his daily thing he needs to do that's a pretty good.

Yeah the duo there you go.

And actually they have chess now and he's been doing chess and he's really liking it.

Oh man.

Don't don't make me like the deals.

I also want to ask you just in full transparency, I think listeners by now know that, is facing a $1.2 million cut from the federal government by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and some of the efforts, that have been going on to to gut public media, funding.

And that's not the majority of our budget, but it certainly matters.

New York State has stepped in with, I think, $4 million to be shared across public media, across state.

I actually don't even know what the number would be coming in here.

It's not $1.2 million.

But I want to just ask you a little bit about, your position on that and why you think the state should or shouldn't step in in that regard.

So I want the state to be able to step in wherever we can to help offset some of the damage we're seeing from the federal government.

Obviously, we can't step in in every situation, but when it came to public radio, public radio is a resource for people.

It is a one of the most trusted news sources.

It provides, educational, access to children, particularly low income children, particularly children who are non-native English speakers.

The public benefit of public radio is so vast that it actually offsets things that are otherwise a government purpose.

You know, especially, you know, we were, members when my son was little to access all of the wonderful online resources that, you know, just she has.

This is not meant to be a commercial for XYZ, but you're my local affiliate.

So I think that there's a lot of value in the state buttressing public radio and, public news, especially with an administration that is so affirmatively, aggressively against independent news sources, presidential administrations, to ensure that we are protecting our journalists wherever we can as well.

No, I don't want to be like, this is the lightning round, but we've got three minutes left.

So you ready?

Expanded child tax credit?

Yes.

It didn't go as far as we, would have liked.

Like, Sarah Clarke has her milk bill, that is a little bit more of a, that's really more of a baby box issue.

But I do think, creating a credit up to $1,000 is going to be a meaningful impact for a lot of families.

Okay, that's probably a whole separate conversation, which we're going to try to do soon.

So everybody understands what's happening.

Federal and state, inflation relief checks.

Yeah.

So we just happening.

It is happening.

And I'll tell you, we pulled it in our constituent survey.

People want their money back.

Could we have used $3.1 billion for other things?

We could have, but this is the people's money.

They spent it on sales tax, and we will give it back to them because it was a windfall to us.

So how are we getting the money back?

What's the, there's going to be direct checks to people when you file.

There's different parameters, families making I think it's.

Oh, I should have those numbers in front of me.

You can Google it per minute, but it's next year when you find it.

No, it'll be, this fall.

This fall, it'll be premised off this year's tax.

Okay.

You should receive them this fall.

Right around the same time you get your star check if you qualify for star.

As we get closer to that, I'm sure we'll have a conversation on the program about that.

The governor touted free school meals.

What do you think?

I'm very, very happy that we're going to do universal, school meals.

This is something that we did for a lot of the state last year.

But we were able to roll out to all schools this year to create better equity.

As long as you participate in the federal lunch program, which like, for example, right now, Pittsburgh does not participate in the federal lunch program.

So, they have a very short window of time to sign up and if your district doesn't participate and you're interested, you should let them know that you want them to sign up.

They have until, some day in July.

There are a lot of districts on that list.

No, just probably the higher income districts.

The only district I am personally aware of is Pittsburgh in my area.

Okay.

And lastly, on childcare again, that's it's own conversation.

It's something you've been working on for years.

Childcare affordability.

How's the state doing?

What's in this budget?

So one of the things we did put in this budget was a, enhancement for our subsidy program because New York City over enrolled, so they were about $1 billion in the hole because our program was so very successful and so widely needed that they actually ran out of funding and had to close the roll.

So to help them open back up, we gave them some money.

We also spread some money around the rest of the state to help bolster that.

But I think the fact that the program was over enrolled is a testament to just how many families need to take advantage of what are really sizable subsidies for childcare.

And you really don't think we're living in a simulation?

Not right now.

I mean, again, I have like plantar fasciitis in one of my feet.

I feel like that wouldn't be in the simulation.

I think we could build that in.

I think that there the aliens are good enough to do that.

Why would they need to, like for the for the comedy of it?

Oh, I guess like, you're just fine if you think they're funny.

You think robots.

I actually don't think we're living in a simulation, but I just wouldn't put it past.

I'm watching a show called Resident Alien and it's messing with my brain.

I want to thank you for taking the time to come in here.

Thank you very much.

Happy to do it.

Thank you for answering our questions and our listeners.

That's Assembly member Jen Lunsford.

It's part of our series of conversations with state lawmakers talking about the recently passed New York state budget.

We've got more connections coming up in a moment.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link at WXXI news.org.