After a delay lasting a week longer than the due date demanded of us by state law, legislators recently passed the state budget mostly along party lines in Albany. With a $212 billion total, an all-time high due to pandemic spending paid for by federal deficits, it was an epic blowout. 

There are undoubtedly some smart things to like in this budget; I cannot deny that. The support for small businesses, for our farmers and veterans, and those truly in need is all welcome news. But there are just as many negatives with this budget. I want to share my thoughts about what went wrong and where we go from here as a state. 

First and foremost, the progressives’ insistence on continued increased spending at an unsustainable rate is a disappointment, especially when measured against the onerous debt the state has incurred over the past decades. It might have been inevitable, given that the pandemic has required more from all of us, but the policies that come with these record spending increases are what concern me going forward. A total of $2.1 billion in stimulus checks from the state is going to undocumented immigrants. Only half of that value is going to law-abiding citizens. Police-department funds are under threat unless they comply with the governor’s oversight initiative. Gov. Cuomo also granted the ability to shut down any jail with a mere 90-days’ notice. This all comes on top of the $24 billion the state received in federal-deficit spending. This disregard for the law-abiding citizens of the state, for their economic health and their local security, reveals just how deeply radical policies have reached into the Democrat Party.

While these policies are disappointing, there is some good news in a budget as big as $212 billion. It provides $1 million for a broadband-expansion study, which is necessary for upstate New York, and which I have been calling for since I took office. There is $500 million being devoted to a Clean Water Infrastructure Act, which will help ensure our local water sources are resourced for the next 100 years. The budget provides $800 million for a small-business recovery grant, which will help our neglected small businesses finally see some form of support for their pandemic restrictions. There is $5 million for the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Program, which seeks to provide our veterans with mental and physical health support.

Unfortunately, these good policies get directly mixed in with the policies of long-term state decay being pushed by the now radical majority. So New York State has its hands trapped deep down a huge budget hole, and an even bigger debt mountain being pushed onto the backs of future generations. I voted against this entire budget, because despite the good, the bad is so egregious I felt it necessary to stand against the Democrat Socialists who have gained outsize influence in our state government. And that is the ugly truth that people need to face up to sooner rather than later.       

Robert Smullen is the Republican representative for the 118th New York Assembly District, which encompasses Hamilton and Fulton counties, as well as parts of Herkimer, Oneida, and St. Lawrence counties.

I have always been impressed that the preamble to the Constitution begins, “We the People of the United States.” We’ve heard the phrase so often that we don’t even stop to think about it. But as the proposed constitution was being debated in 1787, there were people who did — notably, Patrick Henry, who in a famous speech to the Virginia ratifying convention asked why the drafters hadn’t said, “We, the states.”

By their phrasing, the founders made clear that they were creating a government, as Lincoln later put it, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” They were making a case that government should strive for the common good, which they went on to lay out as: “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.” 

Though they also laid out the rights of individuals that government couldn’t touch — speech, religion, the ability to read a free press, and so on — they made clear that there needed to be a balance. “Government is instituted for the common good … and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men,” John Adams wrote. 

So what do we actually mean when we talk about the “common good” — which politicians like to do frequently? One notable point about the U.S. Constitution’s preamble is that phrases like “the general welfare” and “domestic tranquility” are vague. The founders left those ideas open for debate, and in the centuries since, much of our country’s political history has revolved around how to define them and where individual interests leave off and the public interest prevails.

We can see this at play almost anywhere we look today. It is in our common interest, for example, that as many people as possible be vaccinated against the coronavirus — that’s the best way to protect everyone. But there are plenty of people who don’t want to get vaccinated. Whether and how to respond is a topic of hot debate among businesses and state governments. Indeed, the entire course of the pandemic has laid bare the tension many people see between public health and individual rights.

Similarly, we can probably all agree that it is in the common interest that Americans be able to live up to their economic potential. But when you get down to brass tacks, as in the Biden administration’s huge infrastructure package, pretty much every interest group in the country will be pushing its own interests — and couching them as for the common good. So who stands back to look at what is in the best overall interest of our nation and its long-term economic future?

The key point is that there isn’t a single definition of the common good. Instead, we live in a country that was designed to allow us to debate the question, change our answer as public sentiment evolves, find common ground to move forward, and do so in the belief that even if our direction doesn’t satisfy everyone, at least it has broad popular backing — or that we can change if needed. In other words, in our system maybe the greatest common good is the opportunity to define the common good. 

Why does any of this matter right now? In part, because we depend on our institutions of government to get it right — and to earn our respect while doing so. In the Federalist Papers, James Madison wrote, “No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.” We have come through a trying time of disorder, and there is a lot at stake as government tries to rebuild.

Even more important, our ability to discern and act on what’s in our common interest depends on believing that we, as Americans, all have something in common. In countries divided by internal conflict — places like Syria come to mind — ethnic, religious, or ideological identities often override the sense of a shared political community. We’ve seen worrying signs of something similar taking shape in the U.S. Our future depends on refocusing on what unites us, not what divides us.    

Lee Hamilton, 90, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at 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.