After a month-long delay that featured six emergency extenders, secretive meetings, and several backdoor deals, the recently passed New York State budget amounted to another missed opportunity. At a time when inflation remains problematic and the state’s sky-high cost of living has driven hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers away, we needed a budget focused on relieving the enormous fiscal pressure facing New York families. Unfortunately, the record-setting spending plan that was just passed completely ignores that reality.

The budget fails in a lot of places. Sprinkled throughout the plan are some attractive looking provisions like $715.1 million in aid to municipalities, a record investment in education funding, and an additional $60 million for local assistance projects, but when you spend $229 billion it would be hard not to improve at least some segments of government.

The most glaring inadequacies show up in the confusing tax policies included in the spending plan. Instead of reducing rates for businesses and middle-class families, this budget extended the “temporary” business tax rate through 2026, raised the MTA Payroll Mobility Tax in New York City, and increased general and operating-fund spending by $15.3 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively. The new budget also, again, raises the minimum wage.

Many business owners have expressed concerns that extending business taxes for three more years is the first step to making them permanent; this is a legitimate fear, and anyone paying attention in Albany likely had the same thought. Albany Democrats have never met a tax hike they didn’t like.

Tax policy aside, this budget also saddles New Yorkers with a slew of new environmental regulations as we continue to march toward an unsuitable renewable-only energy grid. For example, the prohibition on new fossil-fuel equipment, including gas stoves, in all new construction after 2028 is an expensive, logistical nightmare. Protecting the environment is important, and so is building a diverse energy portfolio utilizing all the resources at our disposal. Instead, the left wing in Albany replaced common-sense moderation with their trademark policy overreactions and misguided zeal.

Additionally, for those hoping the extra month of negotiating would yield substantive changes to our failing criminal-justice policy, you would be disappointed at the superficial window-dressing agreement reached instead. While there were some supposed clarifying changes to the language regarding setting bail for individuals likely to reoffend, we are still nowhere near where we were before the damage Democrats did to our criminal-justice system in 2019. Failure to close that gap further was proof-positive leadership in Albany lacks the cooperation and political acumen to deliver what New Yorkers need.

So, what does all this mean? All of this adds up to a monstrous, record-setting $229 billion spending plan that leaves New York no better off than when we started negotiating. This is a bad plan, and it does nothing to course correct a state losing residents and economic potential. Albany leadership missed the mark again, and it has never been more evident that it is time for change.        

William (Will) A. Barclay, 54, Republican, is the New York Assembly minority leader and represents the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses all of Oswego County, as well as parts of Jefferson and Cayuga counties.

In the pantheon of writings about Congress, California Rep. Katie Porter’s new book will almost certainly draw attention for her unvarnished takes on the institution and her colleagues. In “I Swear: Politics is Messier Than My Minivan,” Porter finds plenty of targets, including her fellow House members, staffers, lobbyists — and how a seat in Congress is increasingly out of reach for ordinary Americans. “Congress is full of multimillionaires for the same reason that the NBA is full of tall people,” Porter, a single working mother, writes. “It’s easier to get recruited and win with such advantages.”

 That’s all good fodder for commentary, but the line that really drew my attention is one that probably won’t get much notice. “As I see it,” Porter writes, “the real work of Congress is civic education.”

I agree. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the job of members of Congress is to educate their constituents, colleagues, or Americans as a whole, but the plain truth is that they can’t be effective as representatives or as politicians on Capitol Hill unless they do. Serving as trustworthy sources of facts and analysis ought to be a key part of every legislator’s responsibilities, both in their chambers and at home.

 There are a number of reasons for this. The issues Congress deals with are often complicated and full of nuance, but even on some of the most basic facts, there’s widespread misunderstanding. No, foreign aid is not a significant part of the U.S. budget; it’s less than 1 percent. No, undocumented immigrants aren’t disproportionately responsible for crimes, compared to native-born Americans. No, China doesn’t own more than half of U.S. debt; in fact, the largest foreign holder of the debt, at least as of late last year, was Japan, but even it pales in comparison to the almost 22 percent of that debt held by the federal government itself (Social Security is a big player) and the 20 percent held by the Federal Reserve system.

 My point here is not to bombard you with facts, but to say that they matter when policy is being formulated. That’s especially true in Congress, where the starting point for reaching some sort of compromise on any given issue is being able to agree on a common set of facts. To build consensus, you have to clear misperceptions out of the way In such a politically diverse body it’s hard enough to hammer out an agreement when everyone agrees on the basics, but it’s impossible when the players can’t even find common ground on the facts.

This holds equally true when members of Congress and political candidates try to explain their positions or build support for them with the public. Voters are inundated with “information,” some of it reliable, much of it not. Our system asks them to sort through it and arrive at conclusions about what’s best for their communities and the country as a whole. Legislators have access to a broad array of trustworthy information and analysis, and in an ideal world would play a key part in helping ordinary Americans work through and understand the issues in front of them.

 But, of course, we don’t live in an ideal world. Many powerful groups — some legitimate, some malign — seek to manipulate public opinion, and they’re very good at it. Even worse, some members of Congress and of state legislatures in recent years have shown themselves less interested in purveying facts than in spreading politically convenient misinformation. For politicians who are dedicated to communicating the facts and what they mean for policy, the sheer cacophony of misleading information and trolling by their colleagues makes things much more difficult.

 This does not mean, however, that politicians should just throw up their hands. In the end, representative democracy is a dialogue between citizens seeking to make good judgments and elected officials determined to help them do so. Politicians who are devoted to understanding the facts that underlie complex issues and then to explaining them to the public at large perform a vital service in our democracy; they deserve our respect and support.               

Lee Hamilton, 92, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.