Greg strongly believes that New York State must reclaim its greatness by becoming an economic engine driven by job growth, and to do so, we must focus on reversing New York State’s openly hostile environment toward small businesses, new businesses and entrepreneurs. For Greg, his daily focus has always been, “Jobs. Jobs. Jobs!”
Coming from a blue collar family, and the first in his family to graduate from college, Greg understands how tough and unforgiving a bad economy can be. As Greg goes door to door, he meets countless seniors trading between utility bills and medication, working families balancing between child care and their rent and mortgage payments, small businesses watching some on Wall Street cleanup after multi-billion dollar bailouts, yet cannot find a local bank that will extend them a loan, and finally, young professionals forced to live at home because the region is just too expensive.
When it comes to job creation, Greg Ball is working overtime!!
First, Greg is working to entice new businesses and entrepreneurs to call our region “home.” Greg has had impressive results working alongside Governor Andrew Cuomo, securing $67 million through the Regional Economic Development Council for 61 job creating projects in the Hudson Valley. Senator Ball has also worked with the various county executives and with the regional economic development teams, securing thousands of new jobs to this Senate district alone.
Secondly, Greg is working with local business owners who are having a hard time staying afloat, and helping other businesses to expand. The key is to remove the unnecessary barriers that may be forcing some small and new business to shut their doors.
Finally, we need both a long and short-term approach to creating jobs in the Hudson Valley, and here are some specifics for the long term:
- Invest in Critical Infrastructure to Accelerate Job Creation: Employ the use of Public Private Partnerships with a strong focus on large transportation projects like the Tappan Zee Bridge. New York is the Capitol of Capital and it’s time to leverage this to finance public projects. We must also establish PPP legislation that allows pension managers of trades and municipal unions to invest in New York infrastructure projects thereby allowing working families to finance, build and own infrastructure projects in New York and to assure their members a predictable retirement income.
- Small Business Jobs Credit: The plan would also provide a 10% tax credit for hundreds of thousands of small businesses that have at least one employee, have business income of less than $250,000, and that file under the personal income tax. Investment in new jobs -$120 million. – 800,000 businesses impacted.
- Support For Job-Creating Local Projects: A new Tax Increment Financing (TIF) provision would help support job creating local economic development projects– an innovative and fiscally responsible step to free-up much needed investment capital. No fiscal plan impact.
- A 20% Tax Cut for Our Local Small Businesses: This measure would cut the corporate tax rate for small businesses from 6.5% to 5.2%– an overall reduction of 20%. –Impacts over 200,000 small businesses / Investment in new jobs -$65 million.
- Lower Energy Taxes on Businesses: New Yorkers pay the third highest electricity rates in the country and 66% more than the national average. This is partly because one-quarter of electric bills go to pay state and local taxes. High energy bills discourage businesses from locating in New York, especially “new economy” firms, such as biotechnology firms, that need strict temperature controls. An Energy Tax Cut would accelerate the phase-out of this huge tax hike from 2014 to 2013. By cutting taxes earlier than previously scheduled, we will provide a major boost to New York’s economy.
- Hire-a-Vet Enhanced Credit: When New York’s heroic servicemen and women return home, they should be welcomed with the promise of economic opportunity. That’s why Senator Ball’s plan would give a tax incentive of up to $10,000 to any business that provides a job opportunity to a returning veteran.
- Re-Train-A-Vet: We must be prepared to offer our heroic servicemen and women who are returning home to a difficult job market to enhance their skills through training and certification. We need to offer tax incentives, tax credits and grants up to $2,000 for them to attend our SUNY and Community Colleges to better enable them to successfully transition back into the workplace.
Greg knows that small business owners are the backbone of America and New York. Senator Ball will work to reward companies that create jobs in the Hudson Valley and penalize those that send them offshore. He will continue to fight for us in Albany to make sure that stimulus dollars, sent from our wallets, are used to employ New Yorkers on New York projects, and not to fund budget gaps.