Assembly Candidate Castricone: Novartis Announcement is a Wake Up Call for New York, Hudson Valley

Statement from Assembly candidate Dan Castricone:

The announcement by Novartis that it will be closing its Rockland County plant in Suffern is yet another wakeup call to New York. We are now losing nearly 300 good paying New York jobs. And while the company partially attributes the decision to the loss of exclusivity of the drug Diovan, there can be little doubt that the cost of doing business in New York is also a factor. Instead of retrofitting the plant to produce another product, they have instead decided to walk away from Rockland County and an expensive facility.

Albany lawmakers need to start listening. The ugly truth is New York has the worst business climate in the nation, and the second highest state and local tax burden. Property taxes in Rockland County are among the highest in the nation. In his State of the State Speech, Governor Cuomo proposed abolishing the corporate tax on manufacturing in counties north of Orange and Rockland County, leaving Hudson Valley firms on the hook for what is already an obscenely high tax on manufactured goods.

It will be impossible to keep manufacturing jobs in the Hudson Valley if the Governor’s proposal becomes law, and I will do everything in my power to stop it.”