(Editor's note: This column was submitted for publication prior to the county executive's State of the County Address in which he will reveal his four year financial plan for the county. Therefore, Mr. Schmitt's description of Mr. Suozzi's plan may be inaccurate.)

The following is my intended response to the county executive's state of the county address to be delivered on April 1. My comments are based on components already released to the media by Mr. Suozzi.

When Tom Suozzi took office earlier this year, we were pleased to welcome him and express hopeful optimism at the opportunity of working together, in a bipartisan fashion, with a new county executive to bring an end to the fiscal distress facing Nassau County.

I also, however, made abundantly clear on behalf of the entire Republican delegation, our ongoing position that Nassau County cannot tax its way out of this problem.

In a recently televised panel discussion on Nassau County, Doctors Irwin Kellner and Pearl Kamer, two of our region's leading economists, stated that the single most important challenge facing Nassau County's government is the absolute need to get a handle on spending. We agree and, for the past two and one-half years, the Republican delegation has put forth many solid and credible initiatives to cut spending and reign in government costs. Regrettably, these have been largely ignored by the Democrat majority on the legislature.

We are, therefore, profoundly disappointed at the absence of substantial specific spending cuts in the county executive's just released four-year financial plan. There are, unfortunately, abundant details in the Suozzi plan about proposed tax increases and additional spending. And since the devil is, as always, in the details, let's look at a few key components of the Suozzi plan:

Mr. Suozzi calls for debt restructuring. The county executive's debt restructuring plan calls for the Nassau Interim Finance Authority (NIFA) to permit the county's debt to be repaid over a 30-year period rather than the present 20-year period. This is akin to you or I re-mortgaging our home and extending the repayment period. Current payments would be lowered but continue for a longer time period, thereby increasing the overall size of the county's debt. His proposal would lay that debt squarely on the backs of our children and grandchildren. This fiscal gimmick had been proposed by the former county executive and its implementation was appropriately denied by NIFA.

Continuing the failed budget practices of the former administration is wrong for Nassau County.

Mr. Suozzi proposes the creation of a Water Resources Authority. What Mr. Suozzi is proposing here is no less than the creation of a brand new, massive county bureaucracy - at a staggering start-up cost - to provide a service that is already being provided by the county's Department of Public Works. According to the Suozzi plan, this authority would employ at least 140 people and have the power to incur debt and levy new taxes upon us. Creating another bureaucracy with a new level of debt and more taxing authority is wrong for Nassau County.

Mr. Suozzi calls for, incredibly, a one-quarter percent increase in Nassau County's sales tax. If this component of the Suozzi plan is implemented, Nassau County residents, who already pay among the highest taxes in New York State, would gain the woeful distinction of paying the highest sales tax in the entire nation. This onerous tax increase severely burdens the middle class - parents with school-aged children and senior citizens on fixed incomes - and lower income residents, since they must still purchase essential items subject to the sales tax. The Suozzi plan to give Nassau County the highest sales tax in the nation is wrong for Nassau County.

And finally, Mr. Suozzi proposed a 20 percent increase in Nassau County property taxes. During the past two years, the Democrat Majority on the county legislature has raised our property taxes over 19 percent. And the county deficit has ballooned. Why? Because they have continued to increase spending. Now County Executive Suozzi wants to hike property taxes an additional 20 percent bringing the cumulative tax increase under the Democrats to near 40 percent in just three years.

If your monthly household bills exceed your income, what do you do? You cut your spending. You don't reach into your neighbor's pockets. Nassau County must, likewise cut its spending. Raising property taxes 40 percent is wrong for Nassau County.

Since the tragic events of Sept. 11 occurred, governments across the length and breadth of this nation have found themselves in financial distress and have responded by cutting spending. But here in Nassau County, Tom Suozzi would have us:

* increase the size of our debt

* create a costly new county bureaucracy

* increase Nassau County's sales taxes to the highest level in the nation

* and, increase Nassau County's property taxes by another crippling 20 percent, bringing the overall Democrat tax hike over the past three years to 40 percent.

All are wrong for Nassau County. We, on the Republican side of the aisle, remind the county executive that no government in history has ever succeeded in taxing itself into prosperity. We will continue to insist, on behalf of the people who elected us to office, that spending cuts and not tax increases are right for Nassau County.